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LENOX DARE 



VIRGINIA F. TOWNSEND 


ii 

AUTHOR OF “A WOMAN'S WORD AND HOW SHE KEPT IT ’’ “ THAT QUEER GIRL ” 

“ONLY GIRLS” 



BOSTON 

LEE AND SHEPARD PUBLISHERS 


NEW YORK CHARLES T. DILLINGHAM 

i 88 i 


TZs 

Le 

a 


COPYRIGHT, 

1880 , 

By LEE AND SHEPARD. 


All Rights Reserved. 



Electrotyped at the Boston Stereotype Foundry, 
No. 4 Pearl Street. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER I. 

PAGE. 

Cherry Hollows’ Glen, 9 

CHAPTER II. 

Mrs. Abijah Crane, ...... 31 

CHAPTER III. 

Factory Forks, 41 

CHAPTER IY. 

From Cherry Hollows to Briarswild, . . . 71 

CHAPTER Y. 

Nemesis, 89 

CHAPTER YI. 

Home, 99 

CHAPTER VII. 

Into Business, 113 

CHAPTER VIII. 


In the Pine Woods, 


124 


6 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER IX. 

Hampton Beach, .... 

CHAPTER X. 

Guy Fosdick and his Friend, 

CHAPTER XI. 

Behind the Pavilion, 

t 

CHAPTER XII. 

The Last of Guy Fosdick, 

CHAPTER XIII 

About Ben Mavis, 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Tom Apthorp, ... 

CHAPTER XV. 

In the Library, .... 

CHAPTER XVI. 

In the Grounds, .... 

CHAPTER XVII 


After Nine Years. 


CONTENTS. 


7 


CHAPTER XVIII 


One Word, 


295 


CHAPTER XIX 
Dorrice Cropsey, .... 


. 302 


CHAPTER XX. 


A Last Talk, 


. 310 


CHAPTER XXI 
A Race for Life, .... 


315 


CHAPTER XXII. 


Another, 


. 326 


CHAPTER XXIII 
Their Own Home, 


. 332 


CHAPTER XXIV. 

Alone, 344 


CHAPTER XXV. 
Jessie Dawes, 


352 


CHAPTER XXVI 


But God Is, . 


. 310 


8 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER XXVII. 

The Mystery Cleared Up, 3 It 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

A Different Meeting, 388 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

Friendship, 401 

CHAPTER XXX. 

The Truth at Last, 409 

CHAPTER XXXI. 

At Briarswild Again, ...... 422 

CHAPTER XXXII. 

Two Homes, 428 

CHAPTER XXXIII. 

Philip Beresford, 432 

CHAPTER XXXIV. 

The Dearer Name, 431 

CHAPTER XXXV. 


Wait, 


445 


LENOX DARE 


CHAPTER I. 

CHERRY HOLLOWS’ GLEN. 

OBERT BERESFORD laid down his brush ; 



he had put the finishing touches to his 
picture. If you have ever written a poem, painted 
a landscape, carved a statue — if your imagination 
has ever embodied itself in any form of grace and 
loveliness, you will be able to enter into the young 
man’s feelings at this moment. For he, too, had 
fairly earned the artist's satisfaction in his fin- 
ished work ; he had put the best that was in 
him on that small square of canvas; he had given 
to it hours out of several days — thoughtful, patient, 
pains-taking hours, without which no real work is 
ever accomplished. 

It had been a work of love with him, too, 
where the heart had inspired the brain. Robert 
Eeresford might paint better pictures in the fu- 
ture, — he hoped to, certainly, — but he knew that 
bit of drawing and color would always hold 


10 


LENOX DARE. 


something intimate and precious to him Ayhich 
the others must lack, though they brought him 
the fame and honors he coveted with a young 
man’s ardor. 

He turned away to rest his eyes a moment, 
before he took a last critical survey of his work. 
Then everything else was swallowed up in a fresh, 
vivid sense of the loveliness about him. 

Robert Beresford drew a deep breath, and rose 
from his camp-stool, pushing that hastily aside. 
“ What a dim, poetic place that old wood was !” 
he thought to himself. He drank in the deep 
stillness, the play of light and shadows on the 
huge, mossy old boles, the world of greenery above, 
the beautiful wildness about him. Of a sudden 
some old lines of Chaucer’s sang up sweet as a 
lark in his memory : he had not thought of them 
for years. It seemed to him now that the an- 
cient English had grown finer for all these years 
that it had lain forgotten in his memory, like old 
wine in dark, cobwebbed cellars. He almost felt 
himself on enchanted ground. The green depths 
of the old wood seemed to stretch before him in 
endless vistas of mystery and beauty. The sound 
of winds among the leaves was like voices in 
dreams. 

The place where the young painter stood was 
in the heart of a deep wooded' glen or ravine, 
which lay half a mile wide between the hills. 
These fell, on one side, to the bottom, in a series 
of natural terraces, which made the descent as 
picturesque as it was easy ; on the other side the 


CHERRY HOLLOWS’ GLEN. 


11 


precipice rose steep and bold, for a hundred feet, 
to the summit, where a road wound past, just on 
the edge of the green gulf. Up the sides of this 
precipice waved dark pines, and mighty oaks, and 
far-branching cedars ; but there were large spaces 
where the rocks stood out in bare, frowning 
ledges. 

Robert Beresford had been making a study of a 
bit of this glen. It lay there on the small easel at 
his feet, while he stood drinking in, with the strong, 
joyous soul of young manhood, the beauty around 
him. It was a picture of an old moss-covered 
trunk, lying across a little mountain brook. A 
narrow footpath wound away from the bright sun- 
light into the soft purple shadows of the woods. 
The blue, shallow water of the brook, the wet stones 
in the foreground, were finely rendered. The sk}^, 
too, had the tender depth of a summer afternoon 
sky. The little sketch showed throughout delicate 
feeling and study — a careful treatment of form and 
color. Yet this would not prove to a critic that 
the stuff of a great artist was in the painter. The 
work, perhaps, was only that of a clever amateur. 

The singing of a little mountain-stream over the 
stones, not far away, reminded young Beresford that 
he was thirsty. He drew a small drinking-cup from 
his pocket, and started, with long strides, for the 
brook, leaving easel and picture, palette and camp- 
stool, behind him. 

If you had happened to see him, as he moved 
away into the shadows, something about him would 
have struck you, as it did everybody who saw him 


12 


LENOX DARE. 


for the first time. This could not have been simply 
because he was a tall, lithe-limbed young fellow, 
of barely twenty-five, nor because of his finely- 
shaped head, nor because of his face, which would 
have been handsome, with those well-moulded fea- 
tures, even had it lacked its rare and noble expres- 
sion ; nor could it have been because his clustering 
hair and thick beard, of tawny-brown, gave to Robert 
Beresford a certain striking, picturesque appearance. 

All these, no doubt, had their share in contribut- 
ing to the impression which he was certain to make 
upon strangers ; but they could not fully explain it. 
There was in the young fellow’s bearing an air of 
pride, and strength, and courage — a something 
which made one think of Apollo and the morning. 
Robert Beresford seemed at this time a splendid 
type of noble young manhood. It did one good to 
look at him. 

As for his dress, that was the simplest imaginable 
— a travelling suit of dark gray, surmounted by a 
broad-rimmed straw hat — not a gleam of an or- 
nament about him. 

Somebody had been watching young Beresford 
before he had risen from his camp-stool. A little 
girl, coming along the road at the top of the hill 
with a basket of low-vine blackberries she had been 
gathering in the woods that morning, had leaned over 
the low fence and looked down into the heart of 
the glen. She saw the painter sitting there with 
his easel before him, and his palette in one hand. 
The sight was evidently a novel one to her. She 
watched the artist and his work with the still in- 


CHERRY HOLLOWS’ GLEN. 


13 


tentness of a wild animal, her eyes riveted, her lips a 
little apart, her breath hardly coming through them. 
She was a sunburnt, rather scrawny, rather rumpled- 
looking girl, whom one at a glance would have taken 
for twelve years old, though she was in reality past 
fifteen. She wore a hat of coarse brown straw, with 
a faded purple ribbon across the crown ; her dress, 
of light, striped gingham, had not been improved 
by scrambling among the bushes and vines ; the 
thorns had torn and the berries had stained it, 
as they had also the thin brown fingers. The only 
remarkable thing about the girl was her eyes: They 
were large and brown, and full of wonderful, shift- 
ing lights, as though a restless, eager, but undevel- 
oped soul looked out of them. They had their own 
times, too, of still, steady radiance, when, if you 
had seen them, you would Lave thought of stars shin- 
ing bright over wide, burning deserts, or over frozen 
northern seas. 

The girl, leaning over the fence which bordered 
the glen, her basket of berries carelessly poised in 
one hand, watched Robert Beresford as he rose up, 
took the drinking-cup from his pocket, and started 
for the spring. She guessed his errand in a moment. 
Then a devouring curiosity took possession of her 
to see the picture which he had left on the easel. 
If she could only get down there and have one good 
look at it before he came back ! She glanced along 
the precipice. The steep height, the perilous footing, 
would have daunted most gazers ; but this girl was 
lithe of limb, and sure of foot, and swift of eye. At 
another time she might, perhaps, have hesitated ; 


14 


LENOX DARE. 


but now an uncontrollable curiosity forced her on. 
Without stopping for a second thought, she tight- 
ened her grasp on the handle of her berry-basket, 
swung her small, lithe form over the low fence, and 
set out on her perilous descent. 

She kept her footing marvellously, sliding and 
scrambling from point to point, now steadying her- 
self by some decaying stump that stood in her way, 
slipping among broken shelves of rock, catching hold 
of branches of trees, or twigs of bushes, or great 
boulders, and so swinging herself down the precipice 
with wonderful agility. Indeed she had actually 
accomplished more than two-thirds of the descent 
when she came upon a huge, decaying trunk of an 
old tree. Some storm, long ago, had hurled the 
mighty thing to the ground, and there it lay, a red, 
slippery, rotting mass, right in the girl’s path. At 
another time she would have avoided it, but her blind 
haste made her reckless, and every moment was 
precious. She set her feet on the shining, spongy 
mass. With the second step they slipped ; there 
was nothing to cling to ; the trunk lay at a very 
steep incline. The girl went down with a little gasp- 
ing cry. She rolled over ; there was nothing to 
break her fall but a few slender bushes, at which she 
clutched desperately ; but they did not hold. Per- 
haps she could have stayed herself had she not, 
through all the fright and struggle, clung with a 
blind instinct to her basket of berries. As it was, 
she rolled down, down to the foot of the glen, and 
fell with her whole weight upon the slender easel, 
upsetting and breaking that, while the berries, over- 
turning, streamed after it. 


CHERRY HOLLOWS’ GLEN. 


15 


The girl lay still a few moments, half-stunned by 
a fall of thirty feet. It seemed a miracle that none 
of her bones were broken ; but, though she was a 
good deal scratched and bruised, she was not seriously 
hurt. As soon as the first shock and fright were 
over, she lifted her head and gazed about her in 
a dazed way. She saw the broken easel, the scat- 
tered tubes of paint, the stream of overturned ber- 
ries, and then, in a little hollow on her right, she 
saw something else which sent her heart into her 
throat, and made her forget all about her fall. It 
was a small square of canvas, hanging to a low bush 
covered with large, sharp thorns. Some big stones, 
suddenly dislodged, had crushed the canvas down 
on a branch bristling all over with these great, 
thorny spikes. In a moment, with a blind impulse 
of rescue which made her forget all about her own 
plight, the girl sprang to her feet, darted into the 
hollow, and caught at the canvas. It was the work 
of some seconds to disengage it from the thorns. 
Then she turned it over, and found — what she 
had expected — the picture that had stood on the 
broken easel, its colors not yet dry. But the thorns 
had pierced the canvas in several places, and one 
had made a long, jagged rent in the centre ! The 
work on which the artist had spent so much lov- 
ing toil of heart, and hand, and brain — the beau- 
tiful picture was ruined ! 

The girl gave one low cry cf dismay, then stood 
still, as though she had been turned to stone, grasp- 
ing the picture with both hands, staring at it with 
white face, and bated breath, and scared eyes. 


1G 


LENOX DARE. 


In a few moments the rapid strides of the owner 
could be heard, as he returned, humming some col- 
lege roundelay. He stopped short and stood still 
when he saw the girl. In his first bewilderment 
he half-fancied some wild creature of the woods, some 
Oread that haunted the mountains, had started up 
before him ; then he caught sight of his shattered 
easel, on the ground, and dashed forward. 

In her dismay the girl had not heard his foot- 
steps, but before he had spoken, before she was oth- 
erwise aware of his presence, she felt his great 
shadow darken over her. One glance at the pict- 
ure in her hand told the whole story. 

Robert Beresford’s besetting sin, all his life, had 
been the fierce temper he had inherited from his 
ancestors. In the shock and grief which followed 
that first glance at his ruined picture, the strong 
man’s lips grew white, and a little half-stifled moan 
broke from them. Then a mighty rage flamed 
through him toward the girl whose mischief, or 
malice, as he believed, had caused all this irrepara- 
ble loss. 

In that instant of blind wrath he lifted his hand 
to fell her to the ground. Probably some feeling 
of her sex restrained the blow, even in that flash 
of culminating rage, for the hand only dropped, and 
rested like a weight of iron on her shoulder. 

“ How dared you do that ?” he demanded, in a 
low, threatening voice, between his closed teeth. 

The girl looked up. The tall, strong man, the 
stern face, the blaze in his eyes, struck her dumb with 
terror. She feared he was going to kill her. She 


CHERRY HOLLOWS’ GLEN. 17 

could not move or utter a s}dlable ; she only stood 
still, staring at him with her own great, riveted 
eyes. 

Her silence, her stare, seemed to Robert Beres- 
ford only an aggravated outrage, an obstinate de- 
fiance. At any other time he would not, with his 
usually clear insight, have made this mistake ; but 
the girl, who had worked such irreparable harm, 
seemed, in his eyes, a little brown, wierd incarna- 
tion of evil. He really believed that she had delib- 
erately spoiled his picture, else there could be no 
excuse for w'hat followed. 

“ Answer me !” he cried, shaking the girl fiercely 
in his strong grasp. “ If you were a boy I would 
give you the horse- whipping you richly deserve !” 

The slight figure shook from head to foot in that 
iron clutch, but no words came from the dry throat, 
only a kind of convulsive sob. The obstinate silence 
only confirmed young Beresford’s impression. 

Again that fierce impulse to strike the girl came 
over him. It was all he could do to master it. 
“Get out of my sight !” he said, in a voice that had 
in it a low, threatening sound, like distant thunder, 
and he pushed her from him. She staggered, and 
just escaped falling. The picture dropped from her 
hands. Each turned, with a common impulse, 
and looked at it. It was a cruel sight. It hurt 
the young painter to the soul. There, on the 
ground, lay the spoiled thing, to which he had 
given so many hopes and dreams ; every touch of 
which had been made with some happy, tender 
thought. The picture was like a part of himself, 


18 


LENOX DARE. 


defaced and ruined. I suppose no one but an artist 
and a lover can enter into the bitterness of his feel- 
ing at that moment. 

Robert Beresford bent down suddenly, caught up 
the canvas, tore it fiercely into fragments, and tossed 
them on the air. The girl watched him all the 
time, with a frightened, fascinated stare. Then he 
turned, without saying another word, and strode 
rapidly off. He left his easel and his paints lying 
on the grass ; he never wanted to see them again. 
The lovely glen had grown hateful to him. 

He had not, however, advanced far among the 
shadowy wood-paths, when the girl on whom he 
had just turned his back sprang before him, panting 
and breathless ; her face was very white, and had 
not wholly lost its scared look, but she lifted one 
hand with a half-beseeching, half-imperious gesture. 
“ You must hear what I say !” she cried, with a kind 
of fierce passion. “ You shall hear it ! I didn’t mean 
to spoil your picture. I only wanted to look at it. 
But I stumbled and fell when I came down the 
mountain !” Her voice was steady and distinct, as 
she said these words. Neither that, nor her strange, 
dark eyes once faltered as she gazed up at young 
Beresford. But the courage that had brought her 
to this point suddenly failed her. Her resolve that 
he should know the truth had carried the fright- 
ened creature out of herself. But that impulse 
could not last, and now, with a low cry, half of 
wonder and half of fear at what she had done, she 
turned and fled, light and swift as she had come. 

Robert Beresford kept on awhile through the nar- 


CHERRY HOLLOWS’ GLEN. 


19 


row, winding foot-paths which led out of the glen. 
The brown shadows wavered, the soft lights flick- 
ered in vain for him. Yet, as he strode on, the 
young man was slowly coming to himself. The 
girl’s words had reached his soul, through all the 
storm of anger and grief which raged there ; he could 
not doubt that she had told the truth. In a 
flash the wdiole thing grew clear to him. It had 
never entered into his thought to inquire how the 
brown, wierd creature got into the heart of that 
lonely glen. She might have sprung out of the 
ground like the armed men of the old Greek legend, 
for all he knew. But he saw now that, however 
fatal her accident had been to his picture, she was 
innocent of any intentional harm. To think of any- 
thing human coming down that mountain precipice ! 
The wonder was, not that she had spoiled his pic- 
ture but that she had saved her neck. He had 
been unjust, harsh, cruel to her — a girl! 

Robert Beresford winced at that. He went on, 
with rapid, impetuous strides, along the narrow, 
climbing foot-paths, over the smooth stones and the 
slippery pine-needles. A sharp self-reproach, a sharper 
remorse, took possession of him. In a little while 
it had quite mastered all his grief at the loss of his 
picture. 

He, Robert Beresford, had failed to be a gentle- 
man ! That thought stung, as it could only sting a 
nature fine and noble at the centre. For this young 
painter had high ideals and fine insight. Whatso- 
ever was splendid in courage, whatsoever was beau- 
tiful in purity, whatsoever was lovely in the tender- 


20 


LENOX DARE. 


ness and gentleness of power and strength, had 
early delighted his soul. All high thoughts and lofty 
aims had stirred his young, ardent nature. A true 
or noble sentiment thrilled him with joy, like the 
sound of a trumpet ; and he was quite too clear- 
headed and true-hearted not to see that no shining 
ideals, no lofty sentiments, were worth anything if 
they did not pass into true and noble action. 

Robert Beresford meant to be a gentleman, in all 
the finest meanings of that grand old word ; but 
now an awful sense of loss and failure overcame 
him ! 

The spoiling of his picture began to seem a very 
small thing to him beside the terrible consciousness 
that he had failed himself. That wild-beast of a 
temper, with which he had had many a life-and- 
death struggle, which he thought lay throttled and 
chained, had leaped from its lair once more, and 
proved that it still was his master. He had dared 
to lay his hand on a helpless girl ; he had actually 
come near striking her to the earth ! At that thought 
a cold sweat seemed to start all over him. He 
threw himself down on the grass, with an intolera- 
ble sense of humiliation and self-loathing. How the 
loss of his picture dwindled beside the fact of his 
own lost self-respect and manliness ! And he had 
dared to dream of offering himself to the gentlest 
and loveliest of women — he who had just insulted 
all womanhood in the shape of that girl ! It made 
no difference that she rose before him now, weird, 
unkempt, homely. She was a girl, and he was a 
man, and by virtue of his manhood he owed her 


CHERRY HOLLOWS’ GLEN. 


21 


gentle treatment and kindly courtesy. How could 
he ever look in the face the woman he loved best 
in the world knowing that he had behaved to one 
of her sex like a brute ! 

Thoughts like these crowded on Robert Beres- 
ford’s soul as he sat there, while the summer- winds 
rustled softly among the leaves of the old birch-tree 
over his head. “ If he could only free himself from 
the consciousness of an act whose memory humil- 
iated him ! Was there nothing he could do ?” young 
Beresford asked himself. The next moment he 
sprang to his feet. His eyes, of dark, luminous gray, 
were full of a new light, a sudden purpose drew the 
fine curve of his lips into a straight line. 

“ Thank God, there was this grace for a man !” 
Robert Beresford thought. “ When he had done a 
wrong thing he could honestly acknowledge it;” so his 
nobler self would disallow his lower. The next 
moment, in a passion of haste and eagerness, he was 
retracing the mountain-path to find the girl, who, half 
an hour ago, had fled from him in mortal terror. 

His search was not a long one. She had gone 
only a short distance from the scene of the accident 
when, quite worn out with all she had just passed 
through, she had flung herself down at the foot of 
a tall old pine-tree, whose heavy shadows shut out 
all the sunlight. She had not shed a tear, as most 
girls, under the circumstances, would have done. 
Her face was pale, and there was a slight twitching 
about her mouth, and a cold chill went over her 
at times. All that had happened had evidently 
shaken the slight brown creature, though she sat 


22 


LENOX DARE. 


quite still, her head bent over hands that, stained 
with berries and torn with briers, lay in her lap. 

She sprang to her feet, with a low cry, when she 
heard the young painter’s footsteps beside her. 
There was a look of hunted terror in her great eyes 
when they first glanced up in his face. The sight 
cut him to the soul. To think that any human 
thing — a girl especially — should have cause to look 
at him with such eyes ! 

The young man, stately as a cedar, with some 
look of Apollo, some air of the northern Viking in 
his face and bearing, took off his hat, and spoke 
gently and humbly to the brown, scrawny girl before 
him. “ I was very rude to you just now ; I am 
very sorry — very much ashamed of myself. I have 
come back to apologize for my behavior. Perhaps 
it will seem less offensive to you if I tell you that 
the picture was very dear to me, and its loss came 
upon me so suddenly that I hardly knew what I 
said or did. Can you forgive me ?” 

While he was speaking the girl stared at him 
with great, puzzled eyes, whose expression changed 
slowly from fear to bewilderment. Robert Beres- 
ford stood still, waiting for her answer. It came 
at last — a little, low, fluttering “ Yes.” It seemed 
spoken less to him than to something else : some 
doubt or question in her own soul. 

“ But I cannot be content to have you say it in 
that way,” continued the young man. “ My con- 
duct now seems quite monstrous to me. If you 
will only put your hand in mine, and say, ‘I forgive 
you from my heart !’ I shall feel better.” 


CHERRY HOLLOWS’ GLEN. 


23 


As lie said this young Beresford smiled down on 
the girl; and put out his hand. His eyes always 
had the best part in his smile. 

The girl placed her thin, berry-stained fingers in 
his soft, white palm. The strange, puzzled look was 
in her eyes still, yet this time she repeated his words 
steadily and clearly, “ I forgive you from my heart !” 

Something in the quality of her voice struck the 
young man. He had not once dreamed this rustic 
child could enter into the soul of his words — not 
dreamed she could penetrate, in the faintest degree, 
to the feelings and motives which had prompted his 
apology. But she was the representative of the 
womanhood he had outraged. It was to that, and to 
his own ideals, that he had been speaking. Her 
voice, however, startled him. It did not seem to 
belong to her. He looked at her now curiously. 
But there was nothing in her appearance to strike 
him, except those dark, dilated eyes, with something 
— he could not tell what — in their depths. Did 
the shifting lights and shadows he saw there mean 
anything but vague confusion and amazement? 

Robert Beresford was not certain ; so he only said, 
“ Thank you. You have taken an immense weight 
off me.” And he put his hand in his pocket with 
an impulse of offering the child — he could not have 
imagined she was more than twelve years old — some 
money, but again those strange eyes restrained him, 
and probably drew out his next question : 44 Will 
you tell me your name ?” 

44 Lenox Dare.” 

The name struck him. It had a quaint, pleasant 


24 


LENOX DARE. 


sound, he thought, and he looked curiously at the 
girl to find whether, in some subtle way, it suited 
her. 

“ Where do you live ?” he asked. 

“ In the house by the toll-gate, at the corner of 
Hemlock Lane.” 

“ Ah, yes, I remember — I passed it only yester- 
day,” and it occurred to him just then that he was 
going next day to the town, ten miles off, and that 
he would hunt up some present likely to please the 
fancy of a girl of this age. He would carry his gift 
to the toll-gate and give it to Lenox, with some 
kindly words. He really felt that he owed the child 
something more than an apology for the harsh way 
in which he had treated her. 

At that moment, however, there came a loud 
halloo up the brake, and young Beresford started, 
listened a moment, and answered it with a shout. 

“ Ha, old fellow, I’ve run you to earth at last !” 
called a loud, triumphant voice. “ I’ve been on 
your track, through this primeval wilderness, for the 
last two hours!” and the next moment the figure 
of a young huntsman, with a gun on his shoulder, 
emerged from the thicket a little distance off. He 
was staring eagerly around him. 

“ I must go to my friend,” said Robert Beresford, 
and he lifted his hat and bade the girl good morn- 
ing. 

The huntsman would be taken by surprise at his 
friend’s companion, and the artist was in no mood 
for curious questions or light jests that morning. 

Lenox Dare sat alone where the young man had 


CHERRY HOLLOWS’ GLEN. 


25 


left her, at the foot of the mighty pine. For some 
minutes she hardly moved, except when her thin 
fingers worked nervously in and out of each other. 
I have said she had not shed a tear through all the 
cruel excitement through which she had passed ; 
but now the slow drops gathered in her great eyes, 
and poured over her cheeks, and dropped on her 
restless fingers. Then suddenly they burst in a 
storm. The slight frame shook as leaves shake in 
summer tempests. How that girl did cry ! The 
noon waxed, the heats grew fervid, but she sat there 
in the shadows of the old pine, utterly oblivious of 
how the day was going by her. Sometimes she 
would spring suddenly to her feet, and pace back 
and forth in breathless excitement. At these times 
she would have made you think of some caged ani- 
mal panting for its native deserts. Then she would 
throw herself down at the foot of the tree, and 
break again into that long, wild sobbing. 

Lenox Dare wept away something of her child- 
hood in those hours. Years afterward she said to 
her friend, when, for the first time, she related the 
story of this day : “ That man spoke to the slum- 
bering soul within me. Not knowing it himself, he 
called to something that awoke for the first time 
and answered him. Had it not been for him, I 
should have gone on, for years it may be, groping 
and helpless as before.” 

I believe she was mistaken when she said this. 
I think the time had come for the inborn forces of 
her nature to assert themselves. They would have 
groped their way to the light had Robert Beresford 


26 


LENOX DARE. 


never crossed her path. But the change and wrench 
would not have been so sudden, so convulsive. For 
the little girl who went to gather blackberries in 
the woods that morning was never the same after 
that day. A new wind of life had blown upon her 
soul. 

Robert Beresford had spoken to her as he would 
to a lady, as he might to a princess. Nobody had 
ever spoken to Lenox Dare in that way before. It 
was singular that the child’s native instinct pene- 
trated at once to the heart of his speech. She un- 
derstood the meaning and spirit of his apology, 
though she could not have put her consciousness 
into words. 

The long summer afternoon waned and grew into 
twilight. The sun went down behind the hills in 
a pomp of blazing clouds. At last the new moon 
hung its golden sickle in the sky. Then Lenox 
Dare, worn out with the day’s passion, discovered 
that the night had come, took up her empty berry- 
basket and started for home. The shadows had 
grown very black in the glen before she emerged 
from it into the highway. She was yet more than a 
mile from the toll-gate. But she stood quite still, 
looking up, with her great, wistful eyes, at that 
slender rim of moon, around which some light clouds 
lay like a heap of silver gauze. Then a change 
came over the girl’s face ; a new hope, a mighty 
purpose flashed in it ; a great dazzling light rose 
and shone steadily in her eyes. She looked down 
at herself with a sort of pitying contempt. Then 
her head poised itself with some new grace on the 


CHERRY HOLLOWS’ GLEN. 


27 


slender shoulders, and her voice rung out brave, and 
clear, and sweet as a flute that rings in the heart 
of summer forests ; “ I will be worthy to be treated 
like that ! I will be the lady that man meant when 
he spoke to me !” 

What a resolute little face it was ! What a splen- 
dor shone out of the eyes ! What a purpose riveted 
the childish lips ! 

Always afterward when Lenox Dare saw a young 
moon with gray, trailing clouds about it, that night 
would come back to her when she stood on the 
lonely highway at the mouth of the glen, and made 
the resolve which shaped all her future. 

That slight young figure standing in ignorance 
and helplessness in the darkening turnpike is pa- 
thetic enough. The world — so fair and soft to 
its favorites — turns to her and her kind so cold and 
frowning a side. To-day, for the first time, a vision 
of fair and gracious womanhood has dawned on 
Lenox Dare’s imagination. Through lonely years, 
through struggle and groping and pain will she 
succeed in making herself that whose loveliness 
once discerned by heart and soul can never be lost 
sight of? 

By that same young moonlight Robert Beresford 
was walking among shrubbery-shaded paths which 
wound through the lawns and past the arbors of 
the quiet mountain hotel where he had spent the last 
weeks. The bloom of rare flower-beds filled the 
summer night with sweetness. In the dim moon- 
light, in the soft stillness, Robert Beresford was not 
walking alone. A slender, graceful girl hung on 
his arm. 


28 


LENOX DARE. 


Young Beresford was talking. Almost against his 
will, he found himself telling the woman by his side 
the story of that morning, of the cruel fate that 
had befallen the picture he had made of the mossy 
old trunk, by the blue, shallow brook where they had 
sat together a week ago. 44 Did she remember 
it ?” he wondered. 

44 Of course she did.” And as she spoke, a pair 
of bewitching violet eyes shone on him through the 
summer night. 44 What an odd, delightful adven- 
ture it all was — what a cruel fate that his painting 
should be spoiled by that wild young hoiden !” 

The look, the words, drew young Beresford on 
to speak further. He related how, in his first sur- 
prise and grief, a devil of rage had risen up and 
overmastered him ; he went over the whole scene in 
the glen — he told how he had destroyed the picture, 
and rushed away in wrath and despair ; how the 
girl had followed him, and forced him to hear the 
truth ; and how, when he came to himself, and saw 
his own injustice and cruelty, he had gone back and 
made what atonement he could. 

No generous-souled woman could have listened 
to the story unmoved. The bright eyes, when they 
looked up again, glimmered through tears. 

That sight gave the young man courage. He 
told what a work of love the picture had been ; how, 
above it, inspiring him all these days, had hovered 
the vision of a beautiful face ; how he had intended 
to place the finished sketch in the hands of the 
woman for whose sake it had been made. He had 
dared to think that the fitting moment for telling 


CHERRY HOLLOWS’ GLEN. 


29 


her of the new joy which had flashed through soul 
and heart as they sat together on the mossy trunk, 
above the shallow, singing brook. But how could 
he, so lately harsh and cruel to a weak, helpless girl, 
presume to offer himself to the loveliest of women ! 
Would she not, knowing the truth, refuse and 
despise him ? 

It was a strange wooing ! The girl on Robert 
Beresford’s arm had had lovers before ; but not one 
who would have dared talk like this. * How weak 
and vapid all their flatteries seemed now ! How 
small the men themselves dwindled in the shadow of 
this noble youth who walked by her side ! 

“I — I do not believe she would answer you in 
that way!” faltered the maiden. 

So, in the shrubbery-shaded, flower-scented paths, 
Robert Beresford and Stacey Meredith were be- 
trothed. 

The joy that filled their souls that night had some- 
thing to spare for others. Stacey could afford to 
forgive even the “ young hoiden ” who had spoiled 
her lover’s picture. It was agreed between the two 
that they would drive into town the next day, and 
that the lady should herself select the gift they 
would carry to the toll-gate for the little girl whose 
life-path had, at this juncture, so strangely crossed 
their own. 

But when they reached the hotel that night, Stacey 
found a telegram awaiting her. Her father had 
been taken suddenly and dangerously ill. 

The next morning she left for the city. Robert 
Beresford accompanied her only part of the way. 


80 


LENOX DARE. 


That time of anxiety and grief was no fitting one to 
declare their engagement ; and young Beresford was 
obliged to resign his betrothed to her friends, and 
fulfil his long-deferred promise of joining some cousins 
at the sea-shore. 

So Lenox Dare never got her present. 


CHAPTER IT. 


MRS. ABIJAH CRANE. 

M RS. ABIJAH CRANE was a pessimist. Not 
that she would have had the faintest idea of the 
meaning of the word, and she would have resented 
the appellation, presuming it implied some form of 
paganism. But for all that, her views of the world 
in general, and of her own fortunes in particular, 
were of the most sombre kind. She was a small, 
rather sharp-featured woman, with a face that might 
have been pretty in its fresh youth, but was sallow 
and faded now, and had, at most times, a depressed, 
dissatisfied expression. She drank strong tea, and 
was inclined to hysterics. She had been for more 
than ten years the second wife of Abijah Crane ; he 
had been for the last five the keeper of the toll-gate. 
Mrs. Crane felt very much humiliated by her posi- 
tion, and regarded her second marriage as the mis- 
take of her life, as well as the source of all her ill- 
fortunes. She was fond of alluding to her first 
marriage, with a deeply-drawn sigh and a melancholy 
shake of the head, as the golden period of her life. 
That blissful epoch, however, had been limited to a 
single year, and those who ought to know insisted 
that Colonel Marvell would never have entered into 

31 


32 


LENOX DALE. 


his last marriage had not paralysis and old age 
reduced him to his second childhood. 

The ancient bridegroom, near his fourscore years, 
with the title he had won in his youth by gallant 
conduct during the war of 1812, observed to the last 
his air of chivalric courtesy toward his wife. His 
manners were, in many respects, in striking contrast 
with those of her second spouse. 

Abijali Crane was not precisely a boor.; he did not 
lack at bottom a kind heart, but he was dull, and 
slow, and thriftless. Whatever he attempted in 
business was sure to result in failure. In a bargain, 
shrewder brains always got the better of him. He 
had inherited, at his father’s death, a flourishing 
farm ; but the young owner was easily drawn into 
rash speculations, and mortgages soon devoured his 
land. 

The history of that farm was an epitome of the 
man’s whole business career ; and it ended at last 
with Abijah Crane’s sitting in his old age on the 
little sunny porch by the toll-gate, with a clay pipe 
in his mouth, ready to hold an endless discussion on 
politics or the crops with the driver of any team who 
passed that way. 

With a man of this sort, the dark side of the drama 
usually lies in the fate of the woman whose fortunes 
are bound up with his own. Mrs. Crane could never 
forget that she had been Mrs. Colonel Marvell, and 
the contrast between her former state and her present 
one, as the wife of the toll-gate keeper, was very gall- 
ing. It did not improve matters to reflect that her 
fallen fortunes were largely the result of her own 


MRS. ABIJAH CRANE. 


33 


weak credulity. She had, before her marriage with 
Abijah Crane, allowed him to invest the whole of the 
small fortune which Colonel Marvell had left her, in 
some silver mines a few miles from Cherry Hollows, 
and which, for a year or two, had turned a good many 
wiser brains than honest Abijah Crane’s. 

It was the old story. The mines did not yield as 
the owners had fondly anticipated, and in a little 
while did not pay for working them. 

Colonel Marvell, at his death, had left but one 
relative — a little grand-niece, not quite five years 
old. The old man had been very fond of his small, 
orphan kinswoman, the last of his race. She had 
dwelt under his roof for more than two years, and 
her childish prattle always reminded him of the little 
girl he had lost in his prime ; and it was very touch- 
ing to see how the old man, as liis memory failed, 
confounded the living child with the other, dead al- 
most two-score years ago. 

The little girl had been brought by her father, 
aft^r his young wife’s sudden death, to his uncle at 
Cherry Hollows. The child had been delicate, and 
the father hoped the air of the old mountain-town 
where his uncle dwelt would give the puny frame a 
fresh start. He left her there when he went on busi- 
ness to Nassau for the winter. He stayed too late in 
the spring. The yellow fever carried him off after 
a couple of day’s illness. 

Edward Dare left what, under the right sort of 
management, would have been a comfortable fortune 
for his little orphan daughter, away off among the 
quiet northern hills in the heart of New York State ; 


34 


LENOX DARE. 


but there was nobody to attend to the dead man’s 
affairs but poor, old, broken-down Colonel Marvell, 
who liked to trot her on his knee, and watch the 
little, dark, wistful face as he told her stories about 
the war of 1812, and filled her dawning childhood 
with all sorts of weird legends and wild tales of the 
Revolution. 

Meanwhile, the little girl’s fortune was left to take 
care of itself. Colonel Marvell could never be made 
to understand the facts of the case. He died in the 
belief that his small niece was a considerable heiress, 
when the truth was that her whole fortune had 
dwindled away, or fallen into the hands of rascally 
agents. 

Pretty much the same thing might be said of the 
old man’s property. To everybody’s amazement he 
had married his housekeeper the year after his niece 
came to reside with him. Before his death he made 
a will, and, under the impression that his small kins- 
woman was amply provided, for, he left everything 
to his widow. But the old family estate was heavily 
laden with mortgages, the result of profitless invest- 
ments in the owner’s declining years ; so the honor 
of his name, and what accrued from the sale of the 
ancient homestead, was about all that fell to Mrs. 
Colonel Marvell. 

We have seen how this remnant of a fortune came 
into Abijah Crane’s hands. The man was a widower, 
with several grown-up sons on Western farms. He 
had been an admirer of Mrs. Marvell’s in her youth, 
and when he called on her in her widowhood, and 
dilated glowingly on the newly-discovered silver 


MRS. ABIJAH CRANE. 


35 


mines, the man devoutly believed every syllable that 
he uttered. What was of a great deal more conse- 
quence, he made Mrs. Marvell believe it, too ; but it 
would be doing the simple, kindly nature great in- 
justice to insinuate that any mercenary motives were 
at the bottom of Abijah Crane’s seeking the widow’s 
hand. In her moments of greatest exasperation, she 
never threw that accusation in his teeth. It had 
been Mrs. Crane’s misfortune that the old boyish 
admiration she had inspired had survived so many 
years, and ended at last by bringing her to the turn- 
pike at the corner of Hemlock Lane. 

It had brought Lenox Dare, Colonel Marvell’s 
little grand-niece, there, too. The old man had sol- 
emnly consigned the child to his wife’s care on his 
death-bed; and Mrs. Marvell, when she promised to 
be a mother to her, meant to keep her word. She 
had been* attached to the child, and had, beside, an 
uneasy consciousness that she owed her some repa- 
ration. Had it not been for her uncle’s marriage, 
Lenox would have inherited his property ; and he 
would certainly have made a will in her favor had 
he not died in the belief that her father had amply 
provided for her. 

Before her second marriage, Mrs. Marvell had 
stipulated that Lenox should share her house, and 
Abijah Crane had promptly assented to this arrange- 
ment. It was not in his kindly nature to give the 
little orphan under his roof a stern word or glance. 
In his slow, silent way, he was fond of her ; and 
when, under ill-fortune Mrs. Crane’s temper soured, 
and her tongue grew sharp, her husband did his best, 


36 


LENOX DARE. 


not always with tact or discretion, to shield Lenox 
from their effects. 

She had been from her babyhood a delicate, quaint 
child ; and her whole life, with its surroundings and 
isolation, had thrown her on herself, and intensified 
all her peculiarities. The only playfellow she ever 
had was her great-uncle. She had learned to read 
• — she could not remember how — and books had. 
formed the solace and companionship of her life. 
She had access to a large store of these, for, through 
all reverses, her father’s and uncle’s library had been 
carefully preserved by Mrs. Crane, as a visible sign 
of the better days on which she loved to expatiate. 

Lenox had a marvellous memory ; and at fifteen 
she had read more of the best literature of all ages 
than one girl in a thousand. The finest translations 
of ancient classics, the old English dramatists and 
authors, were familiar to her as household words. 
The library held, too, the works of the most famous 
writers down to her own time. So she fed her lonely 
young soul on noble and beautiful thoughts and 
images. These rows of books in the low-roofed, back 
chamber of the house by the turnpike, and the world 
out-doors formed the sole interests of Lenox Dare’s 
life. She was as fond of the woods as any of the wild 
creatures that haunted them. Indeed, she literally 
lived out-doors a great part of the time, wandering 
among the picturesque old roads, the wild glens and 
wooded hills of Cherry Hollows. No weather ever 
daunted her, and she only remained in-doors when 
Mrs. Crane laid her commands on her; then she 
would betake herself to the old back- chamber and 


MBS. ABIJAH CRANE. 


87 


seize some volume, and become utterly oblivious to 
everything outside of its pages. 

This out-door life, in the bracing air of the hills, 
was precisely suited to the frail orphan. Every year 
she grew stronger and plumper, though at fifteen she 
was still a slight, undersized creature. Her ignorance 
of the world, of many of those things which possess 
vital interest to girls of her age, was almost incon- 
ceivable. In the life that Lenox Dare led, there was 
a good deal unnatural and unwholesome, at her years. 
What would her proud, young father, her refined, 
beautiful mother have thought of such culture and 
surroundings for their child? Yet I doubt whether, 
had any one cared to ask her if she were unhappy, 
Lenox Dare could, the day before she met young 
Beresford, have answered in the affirmative. It is 
true, she had been, at times, vaguely conscious of 
some restlessness and incompleteness which she 
could not explain, and for which she found no rem- 
edy but the books inside the low-roofed chamber, or 
the vast “ green-book ” always spread open for her 
reading out-doors. 

Her deepest trouble thus far had been Mrs. Crane’s 
pets and tempers. The soured, disappointed woman 
too often wreaked her ill -humors on the helpless girl. 
Lenox, with her odd, dreaming manner, was a con- 
stant perplexity to the toll-keeper’s weak, narrow- 
brained wife. In her paroxysms of ill-temper, she 
would sharply upbraid the girl with her indolence and 
stupidity, and set her at some task impossible for her 
youth and inexperience to accomplish. Happily these 
moods were of brief duration, and usually ended in a 


88 


LENOX DARE. 


shower of hysteric tears and plaints over her hard lot, 
after which Mrs. Crane’s skies would clear for days. 

Some instinct held Lenox silent during the storm 
of upbraidings and reproaches. One might almost 
have fancied at such moments that the girl lacked or- 
dinary sensibilities, as Mrs. Crane sometimes averred. 
But the young soul was often stabbed by the cruel 
words. It was also a part of Mrs. Crane’s system 
never to praise Lenox, even when she tried to do her 
best, and this had a depressing effect on the girl, and 
made her half believe all that the woman said of her 
in her worst moods. 

Still Mrs. Abijah Crane was not without a con- 
science and a heart, and these never allowed her long 
to forget the promise she had made to Lenox’s dying 
uncle. She made herself believe that she bore with 
Colonel Marvell’s grand-niece as she would not have 
done had she been her own daughter. She could not 
see that the heedlessness and unpractical ways, which 
often tried her so sorely, were in part the result of the 
isolated childhood that had thrown Lenox so com- 
pletely on her own resources. Mrs. Crane’s mind wa- 
vered, too, between a doubt whether the child had 
ordinary capacity, or was greatly superior to girls of 
her own age. This uncertainty was at the bottom 
of a good deal of her contradictory behavior ; and 
her estimate of Lenox, as well as of other things, was 
liable to be immensely swayed by those who happened 
to be nearest her at the moment. 

Lenox Dare, going home in the dim moonlight, 
with her empty basket, scarcely thought of Mrs. 
Crane, until she came in sight of the house. It was 


MRS. ABIJAH CRANE. 


30 


a small, steep-roofed, two-story building, of dingy 
yellow, with a narrow piazza .on one side. The house 
stood very near the road, but there was a little grass- 
plot in front, with some lilac and syringa shrubs ; and 
a wild-briar rose-bush made a bright, red-flowering 
bloom about the front windows. After all, there 
were worse places to live in than the old toll-gate 
house, as Abijali Crane sometimes ventured to assure 
his wife, which assertion invariably brought down a 
storm of reproaches about his ears. But the sight of 
her home recalled to Lenox the errand that had taken 
her into the woods that morning. She glanced at her 
empty basket with a look of dismay. She had not 
once thought of it since she overturned it in the glen. 
She remembered that Mrs. Crane had set her heart on 
having some neighbors to tea that afternoon, and that 
the blackberries she had been sent to gather early in 
the morning were to form an indispensable part of 
the supper. 

Lenox saw at once that Mrs. Crane would be greatly 
exasperated by her failure to return. The loss of the 
berries, too, would be a greater offence than her ab- 
sence. No doubt there would be a scene on her ar- 
rival. She never willingly encountered one ; yet her 
life had taught the child a certain philosophy, which 
made her take Mrs. Crane’s explosions of temper as 
she would any other disagreeable, but inevitable 
thing. While she never intentionally offended or 
disobeyed her, Lenox had long ago gauged too com- 
pletely the forces of the weak, narrow nature to stand 
in much fear of the woman. She had a certain at- 
tachment for Mrs. Crane, which existed side by side 


40 


LENOX DARE. 


with the consciousness that she had moods when it 
was vain to look for either reason or justice from 
her. 

Lenox found the toll-gate keeper’s wife seated in 
some unusual state, in a large rocking-chair, in one 
corner of the little sitting-room. It had a pleasant, 
refined air, with its old-fashioned furniture which had 
belonged to Colonel Marvell. She wore a dyed black 
silk, and a cap with faded pink ribbons ; her best 
clothes, and the black-feather fan she was solemnly 
waving to and fro, affected her with an agreeable 
sense of her own consequence. But when Lenox ap- 
peared, the dilatation of Mrs. Crane’s small gray eyes 
was ominous, while she greeted the girl with a stare 
intended to transfix her. 

Lenox stood still, waiting for Mrs. Crane to begin. 
She felt too worn to open her own lips before she was 
addressed ; still that long, portentous stare could not 
have been pleasant to any young, sensitive nerves. 

At last Mrs. Crane spoke in ' a sepulchral sort of 
tone. “ What have you to say for yourself, Lenox 
Dare ? ” 

“I am very sorry that I have disappointed you, 
Aunt Abigail,” answered the quiet, weary voice. “I 
had gathered the berries, and was coming home with 
them, but I had a fall — it was in the glen — and I 
upset every one ! ” 

“ What were you doing in the glen ? ” 

The voice kept its sepulchral key, the black fan 
its portentous waving back and forth. 

“ Something drew my attention, as I was walking 
along the road, and after looking over the fence a few 


MRS. ABIJAH CRANE. 


41 


moments, I went down the hill, and, on the way, I 
had that dreadful fall, and spilled the berries. It was 
very rash to go there. I thought there would be 
plenty of time, Aunt Abigail ; at least,” correcting 
herself, “ I did not intend to disappoint you.” 

It was quite impossible for Lenox to relate the 
events of the day to Mrs. Crane ; yet had she done 
so, she would at once have aroused that lady’s interest 
and mollified her wrath. Lenox, however, could no 
more have confided her interview with the artist to 
this woman than she could have laid bare to her 
her most sacred thoughts, her palpitating soul. But 
the habit of silence and self-control which her life 
had taught the girl could not affect her inborn 
truthfulness. The meagre, literal facts, which formed 
her explanation, naturally tended to aggravate her 
offence in Mrs. Crane’s eyes. 

Some more of that sepulchral-toned cross-question- 
ing followed, amid solemn waving of the black feath- 
ers. It only served to confirm Mrs. Crane’s impression 
of Lenox’s culpability. She had lost the berries 
through her heedlessness, and spent the rest of the 
day mooning in the woods ! And Mrs. Crane had in- 
vited company to tea ! “ Could a Christian woman 

be called to put up with such outrages any longer ? ” 

Ilad Lenox been less wearied and absorbed in her 
own feelings she would have perceived that her vague 
explanations would only be a fresh outrage to Mrs. 
Crane. But hemmed in as she was by the impossibil- 
ity of telling the whole story, and her native truth- 
fulness, the girl felt a great sense of relief when she 
was at last ordered, with a tragic wave of the black 
fan, from that incensed presence. 


42 


LENOX DARE. 


It was not, however, a good sign for Lenox that 
Mrs. Crane had not broken out in angry reproaches, 
or collapsed in a fit of hysterics. She sat there a long 
time in the big chair, rocking herself to and fro, while 
the fate of the young girl, over her head, sleeping the 
sound sleep of tired youth, was trembling in the bal- 
ance. Mrs. Crane was making up her mind what she 
would do ; and she had the blind obstinacy, the cruel 
hardness with which a weak nature often carries 
out its purposes. Once her husband looked in upon 
her with a suggestion that it was about time to retire. 

The toll-gate keeper was a short, thick-set man, 
with round shoulders and shambling gait. His light 
gray eyes had a kindly expression, but any shrewd 
reader of human nature, seeing Abijah Crane, 
would not wonder at the ill-luck which had dog- 
ged him all his life. He was a fore-doomed victim 
of sharpers, the natural -born prey of cool-headed 
rascals. 

Mrs. Crane replied to her spouse’s question by a 
mysterious and tragic wave of the black fan, which 
effectually silenced him. 

The kerosene-lamp had begun to smoke, and he ad- 
justed that, and retired once more, with a rather mys- 
tified expression, to the kitchen, his pipe and his 
newspaper. “ There was no accounting for a woman’s 
freaks,” Abijah Crane thought, and he had been too 
often worsted in an encounter of tongues not to have 
learned that silence was his only impregnable de- 
fence. 

As that afternoon wore on, and Lenox did not ap- 
pear, and the prospect of berries grew less, Mrs. 


MBS. ABIJAH CKANE. 


48 


Crane, in lier disappointment and vexation, confided 
her trouble to her guests. She found eager and sym- 
pathetic listeners. The subject, once started, grew 
interesting. The absent girl had probably never held 
an hour’s conversation with the half-dozen guests in 
Mrs. Crane’s parlor, but each seemed to have some 
special grudge against her, though each would have 
been puzzled to tell in what it originated. Once on 
the scent, however, the chase grew exciting, and poor 
Lenox Dare was the quarry hunted down without 
mercy. How they did pick her to pieces ! It was 
altogether too suggestive of unclean creatures, gath- 
ered with greedy eyes around the dying prey. Len- 
ox’s odd ways, her absent looks, her shy manner were 
all held up to unfriendly criticism, and shamefully 
exaggerated ; while one declared these originated in 
pride, and another in sullenness, and a third main- 
tained she never had the slightest doubt that the girl 
lacked ordinary wits ! 

One, listening to all this, could not have helped 
wishing that old Colonel Marvell’s ghost would start 
out from among the ancient furniture in some corner, 
and denounce these slanderers of his little grand- 
niece ! 

Yet these women, who had come to an innocent 
tea-drinking in Mrs. Crane’s parlor, would have been 
aghast had they for a moment realized the prejudice 
and narrow-mindedness which were at the bottom of 
all this clack of tongues. Most of them were, at 
heart, well-meaning souls. They read their Bibles, 
and said their prayers every night, and went to church 
on Sundays. Their gossip this afternoon would not 


44 


LENOX DARE. 


be worth recording here, had it not been for the fruit 
it afterward bore. • That is the great evil with gossip. 
Its little fire kindleth a great matter. 

Mrs. Crane, like all women of her type, was easily 
influenced and very susceptible to flattery. It was 
pleasant to perceive herself an object of general sym- 
pathy, to find herself regarded as a kind of martyr 
for her patience and long-suffering with a wrong- 
headed and more or less evil-natured girl. She began 
to regard herself in this light, and in order to sustain 
the agreeable role , she went on and on from one story 
to another, raking up all Lenox’s past, and retailing 
instances of what seemed her ingratitude and general 
perversity, while at each fresh recital her audience 
shook their heads and lifted their eyes and hands in 
horror. By this time Lenox’s conduct began to seem 
something quite heinous in Mrs. Crane’s eyes. Had 
anybody present volunteered a word in the absent 
girl’s defence the tide that set so strongly against her 
might have turned. But nobody present had brain 
or heart enough to come to her rescue, and Mrs. Crane 
wondered more and more at her own apathy and 
meekness in bearing with Lenox Dare. 

“ If you were in my case now, and had such a girl 
left on your hands, what would you do with her ? ” 
she asked, in a tone expressive of long and meek en- 
durance, as she turned to the oldest of her guests, a 
thin, wrinkled, mahogany-skinned woman, with a 
false front of wiry, yellowish hair, which came down 
low on her forehead, and a round, flat snuff-box, 
which she was in the habit of tapping every few mo- 
ments. This woman’s tongue had been the sharp- 


MRS. ABIJAH CRANE. 


45 


est, and her animadversions the loudest against 
Lenox. 

Thus appealed to by Mrs. Crane, the ancient gossip 
deliberately took a fresh pinch of snuff, to make her 
reply more impressive, and then, while the others 
waited curiously, answered in a high, cracked voice : 
“ If that girl was on my hands, Miss Crane, she’d be 
likely to find out afore she was a week older where I 
should put her ! ” 

“ But what would you do, Mrs. Cartright ? ” per- 
sisted Mrs. Crane. “ I have put up with that girl 
until I begin to feel — ” she did not finish this sen- 
tence, she shook her head with solemn ambiguity. 

Thus appealed to, Mrs. Cartright’s little black eyes 
sparkled with a kind of triumphant malice under the 
wiry, yellow front ; and, as she answered, her cracked 
voice rose higher with every word, until at the end it 
was almost a shriek. “ I should put that girl, straight 
as her two feet would carry her, into the woollen mills, 
over at Factory Forks ! ” 

There was a low-voiced murmur of approval around 
the speaker. 

Mrs. Crane was a good deal staggered. The idea 
of Colonel Marvell’s niece going to work among the 
operatives — largely German and Irish — in the 
woollen mills, was something that, even in her wrath, 
she could not at first entertain. But when tea-time 
came, and the blackberries did not appear, she had 
begun to turn the matter over in her mind. 

Her interview with Lenox that evening only served 
to exasperate her further. When, at last, she rose 
from her chair, and laid down the black fan, her 


46 


LENOX DARE. 


mouth had a rigid look, and in her eyes there was a ' 
hard gleam, which boded no good to the sleeping girl 
overhead. Mrs. Crane had made up her mind. Lit- 
tle as she suspected it, it all came of the artist and 
his picture. They had made that day the blackest in 
the calendar of Lenox Dare I 


CHAPTER III. 


FACTORY FORKS. 

M RS. CRANE did not carry out her new decision 
at once. She would “ take time to breathe,” 
she told herself. Had Lenox Dare suspected the 
truth, and behaved at this critical juncture with ordi- 
nary shrewdness, she might have averted the fate that 
was hanging over her. Had she stayed a good deal 
more indoors ; had she taken some extra pains with 
the household tasks — not severe for an ordinary girl 
of her age, it must be admitted — which Mrs. Crane 
set her; above all, had she, with a little tact, diverted 
that lady’s thoughts into different channels, by bring- 
ing up the old times, and relating her childish memo- 
ries of Colonel Marvell, the chances are that Mrs. 
Crane would have been mollified, and that the pur- 
pose which she had formed, not without a struggle, 
and in an hour of extreme exasperation, would have 
fallen to the ground. 

But Lenox, who had no idea of what was impend- 
ing, was at this time her own worst enemy. Never 
in her life had she been so heedless and absent. She 
went through her tasks, self-absorbed and unconscious, 
like one in a dream. Mrs. Crane, in her present 
mood, put the worst interpretation on all this ; she 

4T 


48 


LENOX DARE. 


fancied Lenox’s manner proceeded from indifference 
or sullen defiance, and she was aggravated in propor- 
tion to her mistake. 

But Lenox Dare’s behavior at this time might have 
puzzled a shrewder judge of human nature than Mrs. 
Abijah Crane. She had passed through a great crisis. 
New ideas, new feelings, a sense of new powers and 
needs had awakened in her soul. She was like some 
creature groping in the dark, who catches no ray of the 
light, no sign of the morning. She herself only half- 
understood the new clamoring voices in her soul, but 
they gave her no peace. She had an unuttered, but 
abiding sense that things could not go on with her as 
before; that there was something for her to do, 
but what it was — where it could be found — this 
lonely, friendless girl of fifteen could not divine. 
Thick walls of fate seemed to close her in on every 
side. 

44 What can I clo ? There must be a way,” she 
kept saying to herself, and it seemed to her the an- 
swer must come in God’s wide out-doors ; and this 
was why she rushed away from the house, as soon as 
the dishes were wiped and the sweeping and dusting 
were over. She went off into cool, shadowy places 
of the woods, and paced up and down the green still- 
ness for hours ; she threw herself on the ground, and 
buried her face in her palms, while her thoughts 
groped within her; and sometimes she wrung her 
hands, and again the words forced themselves in a pa- 
thetic cry from her heart to her lips, 44 Oh, what shall 
I do ? ” and there came no answer through the warm, 
wide silence ; and the days went on, and the slender 


FACTORY FORKS. 


49 


rim of moon grew large and round in the sum- 
mer sky ; and Mrs. Crane grew more silent and more 
aggrieved ; and the fate of Lenox Dare closed more 
and more darkly around her ! 

One day, a large antique china bowl, which Mrs. 
Crane valued, slipped from Lenox’s fingers on her 
way to the closet and crashed into fragments at her 
feet. She had surmounted a pile of smaller crockery 
with this bowl. It was dreadfully careless ; Lenox 
saw that clearly enough, when the sound of the 
smashing porcelain brought her to herself. She looked 
up scared and deprecatory to Mrs. Crane. The wo- 
man sprang to her feet with an impulse to lay fierce 
hands on Lenox, but she sat down the next moment, 
and only said in her tragic tone : u You’ve done it 
now, you good-for-nothing girl ! You ain’t fit to be 
trusted with a dish more than a wild colt ! Go and 
pick up them pieces ! ” 

Lenox obeyed, glad to escape so easily. It would 
have been only a fresh aggravation to tell Mrs. Crane 
that her thoughts had been elsewhere. 

That broken bowl, however, was the finishing 
stroke. That very afternoon, Mrs. Crane went down 
to Mrs. Cartright’s, who lived less than half a mile 
away on the meadow road, and hired Bill, the old wo- 
man’s grandson, to carry her over to the woollen-fac- 
tory,five miles away. While the horse was being har- 
nessed, Mrs. Cartright’s tongue was not idle. She 
applauded Mrs. Crane’s resolution, and listened with 
great sympathy to the story of the broken bowl. 

Mrs. Crane had a somewhat lengthy interview with 
the foreman of the factory. She came home that 


50 


LENOX DALE. 


evening with an air half-mysterious, half-triumphant. 
When supper was over, she asked Lenox to go with 
her into the sitting-room. Mrs. Crane seated herself 
in the large rocking-chair, and took up the black fan. 
Then, in a few words, she told Lenox that she had 
that afternoon secured a place for her as a weaver in 
the woollen-mills at Factory Forks. She must be 
ready to go in three days. 

The girl listened in a kind of blank amazement. 
She did not at once take in the full meaning of the 
words ; but had Mrs. Crane told Lenox Dare that her 
head was to be taken off — that the block, and the 
axe, and the masked headsman would be waiting for 
her at the appointed hour, I do not believe that the 
girl could have been more shocked as the truth slowly 
dawned upon her. She was so far stunned at first 
that she did not show any very great feeling. Mrs. 
Crane, not in the least understanding Lenox, and cu- 
rious as to how the girl would take this sudden, tre- 
mendous change in her life, watched her narrowly. 
The woman herself, was laboring under no little sup- 
pressed excitement, and the black feathers trembled a 
good deal as she waved them to and fro. 

“ I am going to work in the factory ! You have 
been to see the foreman this afternoon and told him I 
would come ! Is that what you said, Aunt Abigail ? ” 
asked Lenox, slowly, and in a sort of dazed tone, like 
one who tries to realize the meaning of the words he 
speaks. 

“ Yes, that is what I said, Lenox,” answered Mrs. 
Crane, in a high, excited key. “ I’ve had this on my 
mind for a good while ; I’ve felt it was high time you 


FACTORY FORKS. 


51 


was learnin’ to do something for yourself. You won’t 
be of any use in the world goin’ on in this fashion, 
moonin’ among your books, and gallopin’ off in the 
woods all day. It’s no way for a reasonable being, 
and a girl of fifteen, to spend her life. You’ve got at 
last to turn to and put shoulder to the wheel, and help 
earn your own living.” 

“ But you never said anything to me before about 
the factory. Why did you not tell me, Aunt Abi- 
gail ? ” asked Lenox, from her corner, still in that 
slow, dazed voice. 

“What was the use of talking about it, Lenox?” 
retorted Mrs. Crane, keeping up her high, glib tone. 
“ I made up my mind to do the thing, and waste no 
words over it. It was high time, too. To think of a 
girl of your age lazin’ ’round ont-doors as you’ve done 
of late ! Did you s’pose } r o u could al’ays go on in 
that fashion ? If you had been my own daughter, I 
should have put you at work long ago.” 

This was Mrs. Crane’s clinching argument. Her 
conscience and her purpose braced themselves against 
it. She honestly meant to keep her promise to 
Colonel Marvell. He had charged her to deal by his 
grand-niece as she would by her own child. 

A cry like that of some terrified, strangling crea- 
ture broke out suddenly from the corner where Lenox 
Dare sat in the gathering darkness. u Oh Aunt Abi- 
gail, do not do that ! Have pity upon me ! Do not 
send me to the factory to work ! ” 

The bolt had fallen. The quick was reached now. 
But that cry out of the young, agonized spirit, only 
hardened Mrs. Crane. Nothing is so cruel as blind 


52 


LENOX DARE. 


ignorance and weakness. Mrs. Crane had nerved 
herself for a scene. 

“ Come,” she said, in a hard, angry voice, “ I don’t 
want any actions of that sort. They won’t move me 
an inch, Lenox Dare, so you better stop ’em right off ! 
What I’ve done, I’ve done for your good, and you’ll 
live to see it some day. Why shouldn’t you be put to 
work like other girls, I’d like to know ? Who do you 
s’pose is goin’ to support you all your life in doin’ 
nothin’ ? If you was the right sort of girl you’d 
thank me for what I’ve done this day, and be glad of 
a chance to take yourself off other folks’ hands. I’ve 
got you an easy berth. I took pains to see the fore- 
man and have it made smooth for you. The work’s 
mere play — settin’ a loom goin’, and watchin’ the 
warp, and threadin’ a shuttle. It’s true you’ll have 
to keep at it steady — eleven hours a day — but I 
fixed it so you could have Saturday afternoon with 
your Sundays at home, and that’s mighty good luck 
for a factory girl.” 

Lenox Dare, with her little white face, with her 
great dark eyes full of some unutterable agony, list- 
ened to this speech. She was fully alive to its mean- 
ing now. Mrs. Crane had laid the young, quivering 
soul on the rack, and pitilessly turned the screws. 
This much can be said for the woman ; she did not 
know what she was doing. 

Lenox was dumb for a few moments ; then, with 
a kind of convulsive cry, the agony within her broke 
out into prayers, entreaties, pleadings. I suppose 
the scene between her and Mrs. Abijah Crane did 
not last for more than fifteen minutes. She clasped 


FACTORY FORKS. 


53 


her hands — this shy, silent girl — she knelt at Mrs. 
Crane’s feet ; she grasped the woman’s dress ; she 
begged her to spare her from the factory — as strong 
men have been known to kneel and plead in a pas- 
sion of agony for their lives — men who died calmly 
and bravely at the last. But appeals that must, it 
seemed, have moved a stone, were powerless with 
Mrs. Crane. Blinded by prejudice and anger, she 
only found in Lenox’s behavior fresh confirmation 
of her worst opinions of the girl. Her horror of the 
factory proceeded, Mrs. Crane thought, from bad tem- 
per and dread of work. Every gesture, every prayer, 
every wailing cry, only hardened the toll-gate keeper’s 
wife. Do you know how obstinate and cruel these 
weak, narrow natures can be when they are once 
aroused ? Had Lenox Dare called on the winds and 
waves they would not have been more pitiless to her 
than Mrs. Abijah Crane that night. You would 
have thought she had not the heart of a woman in 
her. It was not, however, in the nature of this 
girl to fling.herself long against a rock. In her first 
amazement and terror she had turned instinctively 
to Mrs. Crane for help and pity. It was not strange ; 
the woman had been very kind to her at times. 
But she seemed now transformed to a fury. She 
snatched away the hand Lenox had seized ; her eyes 
glared ; she stamped her feet, and fiercely ordered 
the girl to “ leave off her tantrums and get out of her 
sight! ” 

Lenox Dare suddenly grew still. The slight fig- 
ure shivered two or three times. Then she rose 
without another word and left the room. The 


54 


LENOX DARE. 


girl had made her last appeal to Mrs. Crane. She 
would never again, by word or sign, seek to move 
her. 

The woman, shaken by her late excitement, sat 
and fanned herself violently. Her little gray eyes 
snapped and sparkled fiercely. She indulged in all 
manner of harsh and evil judgments. She made her- 
self believe that Lenox Dare would certainly come 
to some bad end if she failed in resolution at this 
juncture. She had carried her point. But under- 
neath all her prejudice, obstinacy and passion, Mrs. 
Abijah Crane had anything but a comfortable feel- 
ing that night. 

Lenox Dare went up to her own room and sat 
down by the window where the large, yellow moon 
stared down upon her. She folded her hands on 
the window-sill, and sat there with her stricken, 
childish face. Sometimes she gasped a little for 
breath, but she did not sob or moan any more as the 
future rose before her — a black nightmare, in which 
youth and hope would be swallowed up. 

She tried to look at it steadily — this girl of fif- 
teen — while her heart sickened and her brain swam. 
She knew a little of what factory-life must be, for 
one day Abijah Crane, when he drove over to the 
Forks on business, had taken her with him. 

As they entered the bare, sandy level, in the 
midst of which stood the great, red-brick, four-storied 
building, with its rows of small-paned windows, she 
heard the deafening clatter of the looms, and wheels, 
and steam engines. The next moment the bell in the 
cupola clanged above every other noise. In an instant 


FACTORY FORKS. 


55 


the vast machinery was silent. As they drew up be- 
fore a high flight of steps Lenox caught the sound of 
hurrying feet. It was twelve o’clock, and the fac- 
tory operatives were rushing out to their dinners. 
For three-quarters of an hour the monster that toiled 
and roared inside would be quiet. Lenox watched 
with curious, wistful eyes the swift human tide which 
poured out from the factory door. She saw hard, 
rough faces of boys, and men, and young women, and 
girls no older than herself. Some of these last were 
pretty, but others had a bold, vacant look under 
their sun-bonnets and cheap straw hats. Most of the 
faces, too, were soiled and smutted with the dust 
and dye of the woollen cloths. A few stopped to 
stare at her ; but, for the most part, they rushed past 
her, a tired, hungry crowd, eager for their dinner 
in the great, unpainted factory boarding-house, across 
the road. 

Lenox, standing on one side, gazed at these girls, 
and tried to fancy what their lives must be. It seemed 
to this creature of the woods and hills something 
inconceivably joyless, hopeless, dreary — as far re- 
moved from herself as a life that belonged to another 
planet. 

Afterward, Abijah Crane, thinking to interest his 
young companion, took her through the woollen- 
mills and showed her the great looms, where the 
girls sat or stood all day, and threaded the shuttles 
and watched the warp. She wondered how those 
girls lived shut up there in the noise and dust and 
stifling smells from early morning to sunset, while 
the beautiful day went on through its long hours of 


56 


LENOX DARE. 


dews, and sunshine, and singing birds ! How she did 
pity those young weavers ! Did it seem to them that 
the day would never come to an end ? Did their 
heads grow tired, and ache with the endless din, 
and clatter, and toil ? 

“ Let us go away,” she said at last to Abijah Crane. 
And he noticed, she looked tired and pale as they 
went down the stairs ; but his stolid soul had no 
conception of what was going on in hers. 

Before they reached the last flight of stairs the 
three-quarters of an hour had expired, and the vast 
machinery started up again. Lenox heard the clatter 
of the looms, the rush of the wheels, the roar of the 
engines. How glad she was to get away from it all 
into the free, glad May day again, with its world of 
sprouting grass and blossoming trees, and joyous 
skies over all ! 

This had happened months ago ; but the whole 
scene had taken powerful hold of Lenox's imagina- 
tion, and it had haunted her at times ever since. 

And now, as she sat there by her small-paned win- 
dow, in the summer moonlight, there seemed to 
Lenox Dare something prophetic in her shuddering 
terror at that time. For she, too, was going to be 
one of those girls she had wondered over and pitied 
— she, too, was to wear out the long days in that 
stifling air, among those whirring wheels and clat- 
tering looms — she, too, was to mingle in that crowd 
of loud, rough men and boys, of coarse, slatternly 
girls who hurried down at twelve o’clock, tired and 
greedy, to the factory boarding-house ! 

Think of this shy, sensitive, girl living all this over 


FACTORY FORKS. 


57 


and over as she sat there in the moonlit silence ! 
That vivid imagination, which thus far had made 
the great joy of Lenox’s lonely girlhood, now turned 
into her finest torment, and reproduced every detail 
with harrowing vividness. 

She wished she could die. The grave, cool and 
quiet, had no terrors for her. It was only that dread- 
ful monster of a Factory, ready to strangle her soul 
among its grinding wheels, its clanging looms, that 
she dreaded. It grew and grew in her fancy, a vast, 
living, devouring thing. 

And the great, still moon looked down on the 
girl’s agony ; and all the sweet sounds of the sum- 
mer night — the stirring of leaves, the murmur of 
insects, the happy little winds that went to sleep 
among the grasses, could not wile her for a moment 
out of her misery. She rose at last from mere habit, 
and laid down on her small bed, and dropped into 
broken slumbers ; but every little while she would 
start up suddenly, and find the bright, pitiless moon 
staring in at her window. 

When Mrs. Crane met Lenox the next morning 
neither made any allusion to what had passed the 
night before. If Mrs. Crane spoke, which was as sel- 
dom as possible, it was with a stare and a sepulchral 
tone, much as though the girl had been guilty of 
some crime. But all this was lost on Lenox. She 
had that to bear which made her quite unconscious 
of anything Mrs. Crane might now do or say. She 
went through her morning tasks mechanically ; and 
when these were finished she started for her old 
haunts in the woods. Mrs. Crane did not attempt 


58 


LENOX DARE. 


to detain her. She had made up her mind that 
Lenox should have her own way during these last 
days at home. As there was some preserving to be 
done, she thought she was treating the girl with 
wonderful generosity. 

As Lenox was leaving the house, she came sud- 
denly on Mr. Crane, who paused and looked at her 
with a troubled expression in his large, bovine 
face. She saw then that he knew. He laid his 
heavy hand on her shoulder, and shook his head sol- 
emnly. 

“I am sorry things have taken this turn, Lenox,’’ 
he said, glancing cautiously at the door. “I’m ready 
to help you if you can see how.” 

For a moment, in her loneliness and helplessness, 
her face flushed, her heart sprang to his words. Was 
there any help or strength in this man ? But when, 
asking herself this question, she darted a swift, doubt- 
ful glance into his weak, blank face, her hope fell. 
Her flashing intuitions showed her there was nothing 
to hope for from this source. If Abijah Crane 
matched his will against his wife’s he would surely 
come oft worsted in that contest. 

“No, thank you, Uncle Abijah,” answered Lenox, 
softly. “ You are very kind, but you can’t help 
me.” 

She went off into the woods among her old favor- 
ite haunts, among the green, still places where her 
heart had dreamed, and her thoughts had sung to 
her. No fairer day had ever shone out of the 
midsummer ; but all its fresh light and beauty 
were quenched in a great darkness for Lenox 


FACTORY FORKS. 


59 


Dare. The clang of looms, the dreadful clatter of 
wheels drowned the singing of birds, the soft voices 
of winds ; all lovely sights and sounds hurt and har- 
rowed her. She thought of the new hopes and aspi- 
rations which had thrilled her soul that day in the 
glen, which had filled the days ever since ; and she 
thought how these were to end in the doom that 
awaited her — in the life that was worse than death ! 

She wandered up and down the shadowy wood- 
paths, the hunted look in her brown eyes, and 
then again she sat motionless as the huge boles 
around her, with her little pale face full of the de- 
spair that lay at her heart. 

Oh, my reader, were you ever young — ever young 
— and did your life ever seem walled up with a great 
blackness all around you ; and in your loneliness 
and helplessness have you ever turned wildly on 
every side, seeking for some way out of your prison- 
house, and found none in earth or heaven to deliver 
you ? If you have not, then, unless your sympathies 
are swift and generous, you will not be able to repro- 
duce to yourself this girl’s feelings — you cannot 
enter into the secret place of her agony. 

I am quite aware there is another side to all this. 
The girls at Factory Forks managed to have a toler- 
ably comfortable time. They soon got used to the 
noise of the machinery, to the relentless bell, to the 
monotonous toil. They found this, of course, irksome 
at times. But I doubt whether the majority would 
have exchanged the factory-life for that of Lenox 
Dare, at the toll-gate. They had their holidays, 
their pride in their new, gay clothes, their evening 


CO 


LENOX DARE. 


pleasures, their walks with their beaux, llieir gossips 
and rivalries, their vanities and triumphs. 

The weavers of Factory Forks earned an honest 
living, and led a worthier life than many a fine lady 
who dawdles away her days in luxurious ease. 

In justice, too, to Mrs. Abijah Crane, it must be 
owned that the woman had no idea of the torture 
she was inflicting. It was impossible for her to com- 
prehend a nature like Lenox Dare’s, and, viewed 
from her stand-point, there was a great deal in the 
girl’s ways and habits with which it was easy to find 
fault. It was not difficult to take her absent-minded- 
ness for stupidity, her long, wasteful days out-doors 
for downright laziness. 

The toll-keeper’s poverty pressed harder each year, 
and it seemed high time that Lenox should begin to 
take care of herself. Had she been her own daugh- 
ter, Mrs. Crane would have reasoned in precisely this 
fashion. Whatever fault lay on the woman’s side, it 
was partly also her misfortune that fate had placed 
this girl in her house. 

The day wore away as all days do, whether their 
hours glide rosy and joyous, as in that beautiful old 
myth of the Greeks, or whether they grind through 
long, slow tortures that make them seem like eter- 
nity. 

The sun was behind the hills, and the dews were 
beginning to fall, when, at last, Lenox Dare arose, 
out of mere habit, and went home. Mrs. Crane’s 
manner was not changed toward the girl, unless it 
was a shade more tragic. The three drank their tea 
in solemn silence. Lenox did her part at clearing 


FACTORY FORKS. 


Cl 


away the dishes before she went up to her little 
chamber, the chamber that was all her home in the 
world — ■ that was to be hers in a little while no 
longer ! She thought of that, as she gazed around 
the low-ceiled room. The moon by this time was 
looking in at the window again with the old, mock- 
ing brightness. Lenox sat down in her old place, 
too, but the strain of the day was beginning to 
tell on soul and body, and she soon fell into a deep 
slumber. When she awoke, it was past midnight ; 
she was stiff and cold, and she crept into bed, where 
again she fell into a heavy sleep, and did not awake 
until it Avas long past sunrise. 

The next day Avas, in all outward things, like the 
previous one. Lenox had lived over, in imagination, 
her entrance into the factory, and her first day there, 
until it seemed impossible, when the reality came, 
that it Avould be any more vivid to her. 

The girl’s last reading before she met young Beres- 
ford in the glen — she had read nothing since that 
time — had been a biographical sketch of Robert 
Burns, prefixed to an edition of his poems. The 
book had belonged to her uncle, but the Scotch dia- 
lect had long repelled her. One day, however, 
broAvsing among the shelves, she took down the vol- 
ume and read the brief, harrowing story — the bitter 
ending of the poet’s life. It had profoundly af- 
fected her. His appeal, a feAV days before his death, 
wrung out of his pride and agony, for the ten 
pounds Avhich Avas to save him from being thrust 
into jail for debt, still haunted her. Those last 
despairing words, Avritten on the Solway Frith, wan- 


62 


LENOX DALE. 


dered up and down the girl’s brain, and seemed to 
mingle with her own misery. In all the sad his- 
tory of genius and poverty there is nothing, per- 
haps, which has a more awful pathos than the dying 
prayer of the great poet whom Scotland first killed 
with neglect and then built costly monuments and 
held grand banquets to honor ! 

“Spare me from the horrors of a jail!” went the 
pitiful words up and down Lenox Dare’s brain. 
“Oh, James, did you know the pride of my heart, you 
would feel doubly for me ! Alas ! I am not used to 
beg ! Forgive me this earnestness, but the horrors 
of a jail have made, me half-distracted ! I do not 
know what I have written. The subject is so horri- 
ble, I dare not look at it again.” 

The thought of that jail waiting for Robert Burns 
as he wore away the long, cruelly bright summer 
days on “ Solway Frith,” and the thought of the great 
devouring thing at Factory Forks, waiting to swal- 
low up her young life in its huge working maw, 
mingled confusedly in Lenox Dare’s brain. It was 
giving way under its long misery. She dwelt on 
all the dying poet must have felt ; the sickening ter- 
ror that must have worked in whirling brain and 
sinking heart, as the vision of that debtor’s cell 
drew nearer, and seemed to close blackly around him ! 
“If somebody,” she thought, “could only have 
whispered to the man hunted to death — to the 
great Poet, who was to make the air of all the 
world, wherever the English tongue is spoken, 
sweeter and gladder for his singing — that his best 
Friend was coming; that he would lead him into 


FACTORY FORKS. 


63 


the peace and stillness, where there would he no 
more cruel creditors, no more dreadful jails to haunt 
him any more ! Why could not something tell him 
that the end was at hand ?” 

Lenox Dare, through all her misery, felt a flash of 
joy that Robert Burns could die ! 

The transition to the thought of her own death 
was a very natural one. All souls, old or young, 
hunted and hemmed in, at the last extremity will 
turn with a sudden blind longing for the rest and 
calm where nothing can hurt them any more. 

Lenox Dare had reached a mood where nothing 
seemed so terrible to her as life. In going over that 
time, long afterward, it seemed that this second day 
had less anguish than the first. Soul and body were 
slowly giving wa} r under all she had endured. But 
the thought of death, as she sat there with her feet 
drawn under her, and the winds at frolic among the 
far-branching cedars over her head, came and tempted 
her. It was such a swift, certain deliverance out of 
her misery ! And then there rose up before the girl 
a spot where Cherry Hollows’ creek widened and 
deepened, less than a quarter of a mile below a little 
rustic foot-bridge. It was a wild place, full of the 
weird gloom made by pines and young oaks, and 
large-leaved creepers. The spot had always a singu- 
lar fascination for her. A little foot-path led down 
a steep bank to the creek. Abijah Crane, learning 
that the girl was in the habit of going there, had 
warned her to be careful, for the water was at least 
twelve feet deep at that point. On her return home 
at night-fall, Lenox would pass the bank which stood 


64 


LENOX DARE. 


only a few feet from the road. There was a point — 
she knew it well — where she could see the little 
foot path which led over the bank and down through 
the brown shadows to the creek. All day long 
the thought of that soft gloom haunted the girl ; all 
day long the still waters glimmered before her, and 
in all the great, cruel world they alone seemed to 
hold a welcome and peace in their cool depths. 
She thought of herself lying there very still, with 
no pitiless Aunt Abigail, no dreadful Factory to 
torture her any more, and the thought grew won- 
derfully pleasant to the homeless, friendless girl — 
to the tired heart, to the distracted brain ! 

Again the sun went down in its old splendor 
behind the hills, and the dews began to fall when 
Lenox Dare arose, out of the old, blind habit, to 
return to the toll-gate. For the last hour the creek 
had been drawing her like a spell. She had been 
wondering whether she should be able to get past 
the bank when the little footpath that climbed the 
slope came in sight ! It seemed to her that a Power, 
mightier than herself, would seize her when she 
reached that fatal point, and carry her down softly 
to the brink of the waiting waters ; and she would 
not resist — she would go with it ! 

Lenox Dare walked in the summer twilight along 
the old winding highway without meeting a soul. 
All the time she was pondering within herself what 
she would do when she reached the footpath that led 
down to the creek. She knew perfectly that every- 
thing hinged on that moment; if she once passed the 
bank she would keep on to the toll-gate. But could 


FACTORY FORKS. 


65 


she pass it ? Would she if she could? She asked 
herself this question a great many times, and out of 
the dark of her brain and the anguish of her heart, 
there came no answer. She went on and on. Per- 
haps her gait was a little slower than its usual rapid, 
elastic one, but it was not from dread of what was 
coming. At last she reached a turn in the road. 
With her next step the bank would be in sight. 
Then, as though a bolt had leaped out of the soft 
evening sky and smitten her, she stood perfectly 
still. She remembered that there was a God in 
Heaven, and that He must see and know all about 
this. It came upon her with a sudden, awful vivid- 
ness. With a cry that was like a last agony, the 
girl sprang forward. It seemed to her that fatal 
something from which she fled was behind her, 
was pursuing her, was close upon her. Each in- 
stant she expected it would clutch her, would over- 
power her, would drag her unwilling feet backward. 
With beating heart, and panting breath, she rushed, 
like some wild creature hunted to the death, along 
the road. At last, faint, breathless, quivering in 
every limb, the girl was forced to pause. She 
drew one great, shuddering sob. A cold sweat was 
on her. But the bank by the creek lay far be- 
hind. 

Lenox Dare knew it was the thought of God that 
had saved her. The cloud of half-madness which 
had hung over the poor girl’s brain through these 
last days lifted itself, so that a ray of light broke 
through the darkness. 

If she had thought of God in these days it had 


6G 


LENOX DARE. 


been only to wonder how He could let this misery 
come upon her. She had felt He was too remote to 
heed or care for her suffering ; but now, gasping, 
quivering with her bare escape from death, a new 
sense of His power and presence came over her. 
What if He knew all about His poor, little, hunted, 
suffering girl — what if He had been watching her 
loneliness and agony all this time, and was sorry for 
her ! 

Was that a whisper in the air — was it a thought 
that awoke in her own soul ? Lenox Dare could not 
tell. But with a sudden, overmastering impulse, 
she sank down on the grass in the little footpath, 
already damp with dews ; she lifted her small, 
pale face, in the twilight. She tried to speak, but 
no words came, — only one little moaning cvy. It 
seemed to her that it found its way through the infi- 
nite spaces to a Heart of love and pity. It seemed 
to her that Somebody saw, and was sorry for her, as 
she knelt there — too shaken and worn to utter even 
a prayer — in the little footpath, in the gathering 
night. 

At last she rose in a calmer, softer mood, and went 
homeward. No new light shone on the dreadful 
to-morrow. But Lenox Dare had a feeling that God 
had saved her from destroying herself. If He would 
do that He must mean to help her. 

She was late at supper, and Mrs. Crane’s silence 
was, if possible, a little grimmer than ever. Her 
husband looked at Lenox across the table with some 
anxiety and pity struggling together in his light 
gray eyes. Once he attempted a feeble joke, but a 


FACTORY FORKS. 


67 


grim glance and a tart rejoinder from his wife effect- 
ually repressed any further exhibitions of merriment. 

The remainder of the meal was eaten in unbroken 
silence ; but the youngest of the three had passed 
through that which would have kept her unconscious 
though the tongues of Babel had clamored around 
her. 

The next day was to be Lenox’s last at home. 
Mrs. Crane had been revolving this fact in her mind, 
and had resolved that she would finally put a stop to 
this “ gallivanting off into the woods.” Lenox must 
be made to act like a reasonable being, and spend her 
last day at home in getting a part of her wardrobe 
ready for her first venture into the world. 

The arrival of some neighbor soon after tea hap- 
pily made Mrs. Crane conclude to defer the subject 
until next morning, and Lenox escaped to her room. 
She sat down in her old place by the low window-sill. 
It was quite dark now, and the summer sky was all 
alive with stars. While Lenox looked up at them 
she heard the insects humming in the stillness. The 
sky and earth were changed to the girl. The cold, 
benumbing despair lay no longer at her heart of 
hearts. It seemed to her that a Power and a Care 
were over her — that some help was coming, she 
could not tell how or where. She must wait for it. 

But she was very tired. In a few minutes the lit- 
tle, brown, wearied head sank down on the arms she 
had folded on the window-sill, and the girl fell into 
the sound sleep of youth and utter exhaustion. 

It was almost midnight when she awoke. The 
moon was up now. It shone down brightly on her 


68 


LENOX DARE. 


from among the stars. It did not seem the same cold, 
mocking moon it had of late. 

Lenox had been dreaming of Colonel Marvell. 
She thought he stood by her with his handsome white 
head and glimmering beard, and smiled on her, and 
stroked her hair tenderly with his thin hand. She 
awoke with the tears in her eyes. They shone — 
those large, luminous eyes — as she looked up at the 
moon. But her brain was wonderfully steadied and 
rested, and her thoughts were all alive and at work. 

Of a sudden Lenox Dare sprang to her feet. It 
was like the shock of a blow — the flash of that new 
idea across her soul. She stood there a few minutes 
in the moonlight, her fingers clutching at each other, 
her face all in a tremor of doubt, with a confused, 
tentative, trembling hope at work in heart and brain. 

All the while a change was dawning in the child- 
ish face — a change that settled at last into a resolute 
calm, into a solemn purpose. “ I will do it ! ” said 
Lenox Dare, in a low, steady voice. “ So help me 
God, I will do it ! ” 

“ After awhile she heard down-stairs the century- 
old clock — one of the Marvell heirlooms — striking 
twelve. 

That sound seemed to bring her to herself. She 
turned away from the window — from the brooding 
night and the watching moon. 

“ Now, Lenox,” she murmured in a moment, and 
in a low, soothing tone, as one might to a child, “ you 
will have a hard day’s work to-morrow. You' need 
all the rest and strength you can get out of this night. 
You must go to sleep at once, and not wake up until 
morning.” 


FACTORY FORKS. 


69 


In less than three minutes she had crept into bed. 
In three more she was sound asleep. 

The old clock was striking five when Lenox Dare 
awoke next morning. The room was full of the new 
dawn, and she heard the robins singing outside. The 
face the girl lifted from her pillow was pale enough, 
but full of a life and death resolve. She made her 
toilet that morning with some extra carefulness, put- 
ting on her best clothes, which were sufficiently plain 
and old-fashioned. Then she crept softly as a mouse 
down-stairs. 

There was little danger of her awaking anybody. 
Mr. and Mrs. Abijah Crane were sound sleepers, and 
if they had heard her moving about it would not have 
surprised them. She was often up hours before break- 
fast, and had long walks among the fresh dews and 
listened to the singing birds before the sun had 
climbed the hills which sheltered Cherry Hollows. 

Lenox set about what she had in hand in a quiet, 
practical fashion. One would not have suspected the 
girl was laboring under secret but intense excitement. 
Once down-stairs, she went straight to the pantry and 
forced herself to eat a tolerable breakfast. Then she 
slipped a lunch into a small willow-basket which 
Abijah Crane had brought her the last time he came 
from town. 

Two minutes later she had softly closed the front 
door. What a morning she had come into ! How 
its sparkling dews, its fragrant air, its happy winds, 
its skies of joyous blue, seemed to welcome her ! Her 
heart leaped to it all. The thing she had made up 
her mind to do did not seem so desperate and half- 


TO 


LENOX DARE. 


mad a thing to her as it had the night before, 
when the idea first brought her to her feet. She 
walked rapidly to a little knoll less than a quarter of 
a mile away. She saw the road she was to go, wind- 
ing up through the green, dewy pastures. She knew 
perfectly well that whatever surprise or anger her ab- 
sence might occasion, she was in no danger of pursuit 
that day. 

Then she turned and gazed a few moments on the 
little yellow house by the turnpike-gate. It lay there 
peaceful in the morning light. It had been her home 
for most of her life. All the happy days she had 
passed in the low-roofed chamber with her dreams 
and books, seemed to rise up before the girl. She 
saw the small panes of the window, where she had 
watched so often, flashing in the rosy light. A 
shadow trembled upon her face. But it was her home 
no longer. She was going out to find, whether, in 
all God’s great world, there was another for her ! 

“ Good-bye,” she said, “ old home, good-bye ! ” 
There was a sob at her throat. 

Then Lenox Dare turned her back on the little 
yellow house by the toll-gate, and left it forever. 


CHAPTER IV. 


FROM CHERRY HOLLOWS TO BRIARSWILD. 
LITTLE before nine o’clock Benjamin Mavis 



came outside the front door and looked up 


doubtfully at the sky. He saw an occasional star 
glimmer for a moment, and then hide itself behind 
the clouds that were moving up in gray masses from 
the horizon. A soft wind was blowing from the south- 


east. 


■ “ The moon has changed, and we’re in for a rain,” 
he said to himself. “ It doesn’t look encouraging for 
my trip to-morrow ; but that can wait until the 
weather clears.” 

He had just turned to go in doors, when he sud- 
denly started and stood still, seeing a slight girl’s 
figure close to the front gate. The stranger had 
stopped there and seemed to be looking eagerly at the 
house. A hanging-lamp in the hall poured its light 
through the open door on the piazza, and brought out 
in strong relief the stalwart figure against the climb- 
ing vines. 

When the watcher in the road caught sight of the 
youth, she hurried inside the gate and up the path. 
When she reached the lower step she paused, and 
stretched out her hands with a sudden, imploring 
gesture. 71 


72 


LENOX DARE. 


“ Who are you ? ” cried Ben Mavis, moving for- 
ward, utterly bewildered at the sight of this odd ap- 
parition. 

The stranger must have tried to answer. There 
was a sound that ended in a kind of sob. 

Then, as the streaming light shone on her face, the 
youth exclaimed in a voice sharp with amazement: 
“ Great Heavens ! It’s Lenox Dare ! ” 

The next instant he was at her side ; his hand was 
on her shoulder. 

“Where did, you come from? How did you get 
here ? ” he asked, with the amazement still uppermost 
in his tones. 

“I — I walked here since morning,” gasped the 
girl. “ One man gave me a ride in a cart. I have 
run away. I had nobody else to come to ! ” She 
stopped there suddenly. She would have fallen if 
he had not caught her in his arms. 

“Walked from Cherry Hollows to-day! Great 
Heavens ! ” said young Mavis again. He knew the 
slight girl had come almost thirty miles on foot ! 

Then, without saying another word, he took 
the trembling figure in his strong, young arms, car- 
ried it into the house, and set it down on a lounge 
in a little, softly-lighted, gray-tinted sitting-room, 
and shouted at the top of his voice, “ Mother ! 
Mother! ” 

An instant afterward there appeared at the door 
the rather small, plump figure of a woman, a little 
past middle life. She had a bright face and a fresh 
complexion, and still retained a good deal of the pret- 
tiness of her youth. She wore a simple, dark dress, 


FROM CHERRY HOLLOWS TO BRIARSWILD. 73 


with little gray-and-black curls on either side of her 
face. 

“ What is the matter, Ben?” she asked, in a sur- 
prised tone. Before he could reply she caught sight 
of the slight figure on the lounge, and of the great, 
beseeching eyes staring at her out of the young, pale 
face. 

She gave a little gasp of amazement, and then her 
son spoke : “ Mother, this is Lenox Dare. She has 
walked here from Cherry Hollows since morn- 
ing ! ” 

“ Oh, my poor child ! ” cried Mrs. Mavis. 

“ I had nobody else to come to — nobody else ! ” 
said Lenox, in just the tone in which she had said it 
out in the darkness to Ben Mavis, and then her voice 
failed her. 

But when, face and hands full of eager helpful- 
ness, Mrs. Mavis approached her, Lenox Dare sud- 
denly sprang to her feet. She forgot her aching 
limbs, her dreadful exhaustion. With a swift move- 
ment she waved back the hands outstretched to her. 
“ I must tell you the truth first ! ” she said, and before 
any one could reply, she began to tell the story of the 
last three days. Nobody could have done this with 
such a passion of feeling, such infinite pathos, such 
limpid truthfulness. She lived it all over again — 
the long misery, the brooding madness, the awful 
temptation from which she had barely escaped ! 
She told how, sitting by her window the midnight 
before, the thought of Ben Mavis, and of the kindly 
mother of whom he had spoken, first flashed across 
her, how she had left her home before sunrise, how 


74 


LENOX DARE. 


one thought and one hope had upheld her through 
the long, terrible walk of the day. 

Nothing human could listen to that girl’s story un- 
moved, and the hearts of the two who heard it — the 
tender woman, the manly youth, were touched to the 
core. The tears were streaming over Mrs. Mavis’s 
face ; and Ben only kept his back by remembering 
that he was a man, and almost twenty at that. 

44 I am all alone in the world. There is nobody to 
help me ! ” said Lenox Dare, turning her great, wild 
eyes from mother to son, as she concluded. “ If you 
will let me stay here a little while until I can think 
what I can do, I will be very good. It seemed to me 
if I could once get where you were, and tell you my 
story, you would not send me away ; you would take 
pity on me and help me. So I have walked all this 
long way just to say to you : 4 Save me from Mrs. 
Crane — save me from that awful factory ! ’ ” 

44 They’ll never get you across its threshold while I 
have a sound bone in my body ! ” growled Ben Mavis, 
and his brown, handsome face flushed crimson be- 
tween wrath and pity. 44 I’d like first to tar and 
feather that old toll-keeper’s vixen of a wife, and 
then ride her on a rail ! ” 

Then the soft, pitying voice of the mother followed 
the son’s low growl : 44 My poor little girl, we shall 
never send you back to the factory. — never! No- 
body shall harm you now. You shall stay with us 
just as long as you want to, and we will take the 
best care of you.” 

Poor Lenox Dare ! She tried to speak, but the 
words died in her throat. The sudden relief fol- 


FROM CHERRY HOLLOWS TO BRIARSWILD. 75 

lowed too soon the long strain, the utter exhaustion. 
She dropped down in a senseless heap on the lounge. 

Three months before that night, Lenox Dare saw 
Benjamin Mavis for the first time. The young man, 
on his way to Seneca Lake, pa-ssed through the toll- 
gate. Abijah Crane, always glad of a chance for 
a talk, induced him to stop and answer some inquiries 
about people whom the toll-keeper had known at 
Briarswild, the town lying off among the hills to the 
west, where young Mavis resided. 

While the two were talking, Lenox happened to 
come out of the house, and caught sight of a little, 
slenderly-built, dark gray colt, by the side of its 
mare. Lenox had a passion for horses. She went 
up at once to the little quadruped, and put her arm 
about its neck, and smoothed its nose, and stroked 
its soft mane. The shy, three-year-old animal took 
kindly the soft, caressing touch. It laid back its ears, 
it tossed up its head, and then bent it down to the girl’s 
hand. 

“ O pony !” said Lenox Dare, hanging fascinated 
about the gracefully-built creature, and smoothing 
its glossy hide, “ If I only had you , I wouldn’t ask 
for anything else in the world ! Don’t I wish you 
were just my own, you graceful-limbed, fiery-eyed, 
mouse-colored darling! Wouldn’t we have glorious 
times up among the hills and down on the river-road ! 
Oh, gray little colt, if you and I only belonged to 
each other we would be the happiest pair in all the 
world !” 

A little noise at her ear startled the girl. She 
looked up and saw a young man, with a frank, hand- 


76 


LENOX DARE. 


some face under a straw hat, gazing at her with 
amused eyes. He wore a light suit of clouded gray. 
He must have been very young. There was a light 
yellowish down on his chin. 

Poor Lenox’s cheeks blazed as she thought this 
stranger must have overheard more or less of her 
foolish talk to his colt ; but he spoke at once in the 
frankest, kindliest way. 

“ You’ve taken a wonderful fancy to my little colt, 
I see.” 

“ I couldn’t help it,” said Lenox. She is such a 
beauty ! But my talk just now must have sounded 
very absurd. I hope you did not hear much of it.” 

The young man smiled. What a pleasant smile 
he had with his rows of perfect teeth! “I should 
like to hear a good deal more talk of that sort !” he 
said, still looking with a kind of pleased surprise at 
the dark flushed face, at the great, brown eyes, all 
alive now with excitement. “You must like horses 
better than one girl in — in a million, I should say !” 

“ I don’t know about other girls. I have had no 
opportunity of comparing my tastes with theirs,” 
replied Lenox, with a little old-fashioned air, that 
would not have misbecome a grandmother, and that 
was the result of her isolated life and lack of all 
childish companionship and habits. “ But the sight 
of a little colt always thrills me with perfect delight 
— sets me half wild to get on its back.” 

“ Suppose you try Dainty, then ?” said the owner, 
speaking on a sudden impulse. “ Nobody has ever 
mounted her before, and she won’t know what to 
make of you at first ; but she has no bad tricks. You 
are such a light weight, too.” 


FROM CHERRY HOLLOWS TO BRIARSWILD. 77 

“ Oh, thank you ! What fun that will be !” cried 
Lenox, her eyes dancing. “ What a pretty name, 
and how perfectly it fits the creature !” 

So the ice was broken in five minutes between the 
shy girl and the young stranger, as it might not have 
been, under ordinary circumstances, for weeks. 

Afterward he assisted her to mount the colt. The 
animal did not take it quietly at first ; she plunged 
and reared, and made desperate efforts to throw her 
rider, but her owner kept at her side, and Lenox 
behaved admirably. She had been -used to sitting 
Colonel Marvell’s old black mare, and was a born 
horsewoman. She clung fast to Dainty’s neck, and 
when the creature was rearing her worst brought 
her to her senses and her feet by leaning over and 
giving her a smart blow on the nose. At last she 
quieted, and getting used to her rider condescended 
to carry Lenox, at least a quarter of a mile up the 
turnpike, with only a moderate amount of shying 
and rearing her owner walking all the time by her 
side, talking to her in the voice she knew, and 
giving Lenox an occasional caution. Altogether the 
ride was a success. 

When the girl dismounted at the toll-gate, a pic- 
turesque object, with her dark hair blowing about 
her unbonneted head, her face all bright with excite- 
ment and fun, she felt better acquainted with the 
stranger she had met for the first time half an hour 
ago than she did with almost anybody else in the 
world. They had learned each other’s names, and 
exchanged some facts regarding their personal histo- 
ries. The young man had come from Briarswild, 


78 


LENOX DALE. 


a large, rather sparsely settled township, thirty miles 
west of Cherry Hollows, and at least a dozen from 
any railroad. 

Benjamin Mavis’s mother was a widow, and he 
was her only son. He was now going down on some 
business among the vine-growing districts, in the 
vicinity of Seneca Lake. 

In the course of their talk, the young man alluded 
to the toll-gate keeper as Lenox’s father, and this 
brought out her explanation of their very remote con- 
nection. “ Mrs. Crane was my grand-uncle, Colonel 
Marvell’s widow. I have not a single relative in the 
world.” She said this after she had dismounted at 
the gate, and was stroking Dainty’s nose. 

“ Not one in the world — such a young girl as you 
are !” said the young man, and there was a touch 
of pity in his voice, in his pleasant, frank eyes as 
they looked at her. 

“ It must be very delightful to have a mother,” 
said Lenox, looking up in her odd, abrupt way, with- 
out answering his question. “I have often won- 
dered what mine would have been like. I should 
like to hear something about yours !” 

“ It is not easy to talk about my mother,” replied 
Ben Mavis, startled and puzzled at Lenox’s strange 
speech. “ I can only say she is the dearest, softest- 
hearted little woman in all the world.” 

Lenox’s eyes sparkled with pleased interest ; then 
a shadow crept into them. “ I suppose you love 
your mother very much,” she said, in a grave tone, 
a moment later. 

“ Why, yes,” answered Ben Mavis, with a little 


FROM CHERRY HOLLOWS TO BRIARSWILD. 79 


embarrassed laugh, almost like a girl’s. “ Does that 
seem very strange to you ?” 

“Not that, precisely,” answered Lenox, shaking 
her head in a slow, sorrowful way. “ I was only 
thinking how nice it must be to have somebody one 
could love in the world !” 

V Why, haven’t you anybody ?” asked Ben Mavis, 
and he looked at the girl with a pitying curiosity in 
his honest young face. 

She gazed up at him with her bright, solemn eyes. 
The hand that was stroking Dainty’s nose paused a 
moment. “ No — not anybody !” she said. “ But I 
know what it means,” she went on in a moment, 
before the young man, surprised and shocked, could 
think of anything to say. “ I loved my uncle — old 
Colonel Marvell — very dearly. I loved him so, 
though I was a very little girl, only five years old, 
that I would have died if that would have done any 
good — if it would have had him live !” Her lips 
quivered. There was at the same time a shadow 
and a brightness on her face. 

Young Mavis was strangely touched. “ But these 
people with whom you live,” he said, glancing at 
the house. “ I see. you call them aunt and uncle. 
They must be something to you ?” 

“ Yes, they are,” answered Lenox, with the old, 
grave air, that set so oddly on her childish face and 
figure. “ I like uncle Abijah, who is always kind, 
and would do anything for me ; and I like aunt 
Abigail — at times — very much ; but that is not 
love,” speaking very decidedly. “ I know — I have 
felt the difference.” 


80 


LENOX DAKE. 


Young Mavis, though time was precious, found it 
difficult to tear himself away from the toll-gate that 
morning. When he returned home, which he was 
obliged to do by another route, he related to his 
mother his interview with the girl who lived on the 
Cherry Hollows turnpike, and who had talked in 
such a strange fashion to his colt. 

Mrs. Mavis listened, amused and interested, but, 
as her son proceeded, her feelings became deeply en- 
listed. The lonely orphan girl “ with no one in the 
wide world to love,” touched the mother-heart of the 
woman. She made Ben go over several times with 
what Lenox had said. At last it flashed across her 
that she had heard her father, in her girlhood, speak 
of old Colonel Marvell, whom he had known when 
they were young men. The fact, when it dawned 
on Mrs. Mavis, enabled her to supply some gaps in 
Lenox’s history. After that, her heart often yeanled 
over the motherless little girl at the toll-gate. 

It happened that young Mavis had business a 
month later which took him again through Cherry 
Hollows. This time the colt was not with him ; but 
he made up his mind that he would not pass the toll- 
gate without seeing Lenox Dare. He came upon her 
just as she was leaving the house. Her face bright- 
ened at seeing him, and the two — the frank-hearted 
youth and the simple-natured girl — met like old 
friends. 

Lenox asked the young man into the little, low- 
ceiled parlor, with its dark, old-fashioned furniture, 
and it was very odd how much the two found to say 
to each other. Fortunately, Mrs. Crane was out, and 


FROM CHERRY HOLLOWS TO BRIARSWILD. 81 


could not interfere with the talk or monopolize the 
conversation. 

“ Can you guess what my mother says about you ?” 
inquired Ben, as they sat there with the soft June 
wind blowing the fragrance of the red, thickly- 
blossomed rose-bushes in at the windows. 

Lenox’s great eyes opened wider at that question. 

“ I’m sure I could never guess !” she said. “What 
could your mother say ? What does she know about 
me ?” 

“ Oh, she knows more than you suspect,” replied 
Ben, with his pleasant laugh. “ I told her all about 
our meeting ; and it appears my grandfather knew, 
long ago, your uncle, Colonel Marvell.” 

“ He did?” interrupted Lenox, voice and face full 
of glad surprise. 

“ Yes. So you see we have a right to be friends 
on the strength of that old acquaintance. But when 
I told my mother about you, she said : 4 Ben, I know 
what that girl needs. She just wants mothering .’ ” 

To his dying day Ben Mavis will not forget the 
girl’s looks. “Did your mother say that?” she 
cried. 

“Yes,” he answered. “And what is more, she 
said she would like herself to do the mothering 
awhile, if she could get near enough to you.” 

“ I should like to see your mother — oh, I should 
like to see her !” said Lenox, after a little pause. 

“ You can, very easily,” replied Ben, “if you will 
only come to Briarswild and make us a visit. It is 
a pleasant half day’s ride over the hills. 

“ Oh, thank you ! I never made a visit in my life ; 


82 


LENOX DARE. 


but I am sure it would be delightful to go where your 
mother was. I don’t think aunt Abigail would 
object, either, if it was proposed to her at the right 
time.” 

Ben Mavis, though he had never seen Mrs. Crane, 
had formed his own impressions regarding her. 
After Lenox’s speech, he made up his mind, with 
the swift positiveness of youth, that she was a heart- 
less old dragon ! 

He sat there a long time and talked with his little, 
quaint hostess, while the sunshine lighted up the 
dark furniture, and the roses shone red at the win- 
dow. It was quite a new experience for both of 
them. Young Mavis told Lenox about his home, 
about his mother, about Dainty. He described the 
gray cottage perched among the hills, on the highest 
point in the county. From the front door, he told 
her, there was a wonderful view. You could take in, 
at a single glance, a scene of full twenty miles. 

Lenox drank in his talk with radiant eyes. “ Oh, 
if I could only see it all !” she said. 

“ We shall be happy to have you do so any day,” 
replied Ben, courteously. 

Lenox thanked him, but her look was a little du- 
bious. There was aunt Abigail. It would be 
counting without their host not to keep her in mind. 
This time she did not express her doubts, but Ben 
read them in her face, and at once concluded that the 
toll-gate keeper’s vixenish wife was at the bottom of 
them. It would go hard with him, he thought, if 
he did not find some means to bring her to terms. 
He was a warm-hearted fellow, but his prejudices 
were very stubborn things. 


FROM CHERRY HOLLOW TO BRIARSWILD. 83 


When the young man arose to go, he drew from 
his pocket a small parcel in white paper. 

“ My mother sent that to you,” he said, simply, 
and he went away before she could open it. 

Even Abijali Crane, discussing with some neigh- 
bors on tlie side porch the prospects of the next 
presidential campaign, knew nothing of the young 
man’s visit. 

When she undid her parcel Lenox found a shallow 
white box, and inside this was a little scarf of rose- 
pink. It was light as mist, as lovely as a bit of 
cloud flushed with sunrise. When Lenox caught 
sight of it she gave a little cry. She had a girlish 
delight in bright colors and lovely things. She 
wound the scarf about her head, and the rose-pink 
meshes threw a glow on the small, dark face. 

After that Lenox thought a great deal about Ben 
Mavis and the tender-eyed mother, and the home he 
had described set gray and gabled on the distant hills. 
She wondered if she should ever see it, and look up 
into the kindly face of the woman who had said she 
needed “ mothering !” 

Lenox did not repeat that speech to Mrs. Crane 
when she told her about young Mavis’s visit and 
showed her the scarf. The woman, like her kind, 
had the most inflexible notions respecting a young 
girl’s observance of all the small proprieties. When 
she first learned about the ride on the unbroken colt, 
she had given Lenox a sharp scolding for being such 
a “ tomboy but on discovering that the owner’s 
grandfather had been an acquaintance of Colonel 
Marvell’s, her tone was instantly mollified, and she 


84 


LENOX DARE. 


very much regretted that she had not been at home 
to receive the young man. 

The adventure in the Glen, with the events that 
followed, had driven every other thought out of 
Lenox Dare’s mind. We have seen how in a mo- 
ment, in a flash, Ben Mavis, or rather Ben Mavis’s 
mother, came up to her in that last midnight she was 
ever to spend at Cherry Hollows. That brought her, 
an instant later, to a life-and-death resolve. It up- 
held her through all the lonely, terrible walk of the 
next day — a walk that was only once broken by a 
kindly old farmer, who gave the girl a “ lift ” of three 
or four miles in his cart. 

During the day she had spoken to only two or 
three people, of whom she had inquired the way. 
She held to the open hill-road which young Mavis 
had described. The day had been sultry, but 
' Lenox’s excitement had kept her at a brisk walk 
through the morning. As noon drew on, and the 
heat grew, her strength flagged. She had rested 
under some trees by the roadside, and fortified her- 
self with the lunch she carried. But the afternoon 
had brought terrible work, and the ache and drag- 
ging in all her limbs made the last miles, the gath- 
ering clouds, the closing-down of the night, seem 
like some horrible dream. 

Benjamin Mavis was expecting to leave home the 
following day, and on his return to pass through 
Cherry Hollows. His account of his last call at the 
toll-gate had deepened his mother’s interest, and 
she had written a note to Mrs. Crane asking 
that Lenox Dare might be allowed to visit her. 


FROM CHERRY HOLLOWS TO BRIARSWILD. 85 


Ben was to deliver this to the toll- gate-keeper’s 
wife. The note showed very plainly that Mrs. Mavis 
was not lacking in womanly tact; but Mrs. Abijah 
Crane was never to read the words that would have 
immensely gratified her ; and Mrs. Mavis, while she 
made her nice little programme for the girl’s visit, 
little imagined at what hour and in what plight Lenox 
Dare Avould first cross her threshold ! 

The woman’s first care was to restore the little 
fugitive to consciousness. It was some time be- 
fore Lenox opened her eyes to see the kind, anxious 
faces bending over her. But she was too thoroughly 
spent to feel much emotion, or even to swallow the 
cordials they brought her. She only realized that 
she was safety sheltered now from the wide, home- 
less out-doors in which, it seemed to her, she had 
been wandering for ages. She wondered vaguely 
whether she was in the world, or had waked up in 
Heaven ! She was not sure, and she was quite too 
tired to care. 

Mrs. Mavis and her housemaid got the tired limbs 
into a warm bath, and then clothed them in a soft 
night-robe ; Ben himself took the slight, drooping 
figure in his strong arms, and carried it up-stairs into 
a wide, cool chamber opposite his mother’s, and laid 
it on a snowy bed in one corner, with a little tasteful 
canopy, and soft, white draperies, beneath which a 
fairy might have laid her rosy limbs in slumber. 

For three years nobody had slept in that bed. It 
had seemed all this time to Mrs. Mavis that the place 
was set apart to one memory ; but now she found, to 
her surprise, that her heart had no room for any feeling 


86 


LENOX DARE. 


but yearning gladness because the tired, homeless fugi- 
tive lay on the pillows where another young face had 
so often nestled ; only one had been rosy with health, 
and dimpled with laughter, while the other was 
white and still — a picture of hopeless sorrow. 

Lenox was haunted by frightful dreams. Evil 
eyes glared upon her. She would spring from her 
sleep with moans and cries ; and in her confusion 
and terror could not at first be made to realize where 
she was. After a little while she would come to her- 
self, reassured by kind faces and soothing voices, 
and would nestle down again to sleep. But this 
would last only a few minutes, and she would spring 
up again, and stare in bewildered terror around her. 
Mrs. Mavis or the girl remained with her during the 
night. 

The next morning Ben Mavis started in a blinding 
rain for the doctor. Lenox had grown worse. It 
was impossible to convince the poor child for more 
than a minute or two that she was among friends, who 
would not let any harm come near her. She lived 
over the dreadful yesterday, over the horror of the 
days which preceded it. It was heart-rending to hear 
the child’s entreaties not to be taken back to Mrs. 
Crane. Then she would fancy herself in the factory, 
amid the thunder of the wheels, the clatter of the 
looms, and with the faces of the night grinning and 
mocking about her. 

The doctor came ; an old family friend to whom 
they could safely confide Lenox’s story. He pro- 
nounced the girl on the verge of brain fever — noth- 
ing, he insisted, would save her from it but watch- 


FROM CHERRY HOLLOWS TO BRIARS WILD. 8T 

ful care and skilful nursing. She was sure to have 
these where Mrs. Mavis was. It was almost dark 
when the opiates he administered took effect, and 
Lenox sank into a deep slumber. 

That evening the mother and son had a long talk 
together. Lenox’s fate rested now in their hands. 
Could her dead parents — could doting old Colonel 
Marvell — have spoken from their graves, they could 
have chosen no kindlier lot for their child. The girl 
who, in her utmost loneliness and despair, had sought 
these two — the girl who, in the night, had barely 
reached them, to fall helpless on their threshold, 
should find across it, from henceforth, shelter, and 
care, and love. Their doors should shut her in from 
the storms forever ! They did not say it in these 
words ; they said it in fewer and homelier ones. There 
had been a thought in the heart of both, especially 
the mother’s, to which she now, for the first time, 
gave expression. “All day it has seemed like my 
poor little dead Janet over again ! What if it had 
been her, Ben — what if it had been her ! ” 

She broke down there into sobbing. Ben tried 
to answer her, and got up instead and walked to 
the window, where the soft rain was falling, and he 
did not see it. In a few moments the mother stopped 
crying. Mrs. Mavis had those blessed, helpful in- 
stincts which always, when there was anything to be 
done, got the better of her own griefs. It was like 
the little woman, too, with her native honesty, and 
her practical sense, to insist that the people at the 
toll-gate should be at once informed about the lost 
girl. Here Ben demurred. His indignation at Mrs. 


88 


LENOX DARE. 


Crane blinded his clear instincts. He could not see 
the wisdom of the course his mother proposed. “ Tt 
was not their business,” he averred, “ to go round the 
country telling people where Lenox Dare could be 
found. If they wanted to know, they could come and 
learn for themselves. As for that old she-dragon at 
the toll-gate, she had not only driven Lenox from her 
door, but come within an inch of causing the poor girl’s 
death ! If she could have a good scare — be made to 
feel that she was a murderer — so much the better! ” 
Mrs. Mavis did not reprove this rather savage talk. 
She was herself greatly outraged with Mrs. Crane ; 
she would gladly have given the woman such a piece 
of her mind as no mortal had ever heard from those 
gentle lips ; but she saw that the indulgence of her 
feelings might, in the end, do Lenox harm. Her ab- 
sence must already have created no little stir at 
Cherry Hollows. If her fate remained any longer in 
the dark the whole countiy-side would be roused ; a 
wide search for the missing girl would be set on foot ; 
rewards would be offered ; the whole affair would get 
into the papers, and Lenox’s name and history would 
all be exposed to an unpleasant publicity. Mrs. Mavis 
set all this in its strongest light before her son. The 
fiery youth was compelled at last, much against his 
will, to admit the force of her arguments. The re- 
sult of the conference was, that Ben agreed, in case 
Lenox had a comfortable night, to start next morn- 
ing for Cherry Hollows. 


CHAPTER V. 


NEMESIS, 


ATE in the forenoon of the following day Ben 



Mavis drew up his light wagon at the toll- 


gate. 


Perhaps Mrs. Crane had never been quite so angry 
with Lenox as she was when, on going to her room 
the morning of her departure, she first discovered her 
absence. She took it for granted that the girl had, at 
last, openly defied her authority, and gone off into 
the woods for the day to avoid any preparations for 
leaving home. She fancied Lenox hoped by this 
means to escape going to the factor}^ at the appointed 
time, and was more than ever convinced of her gen- 
eral artfulness and perversity. 

As the day wore on, and Lenox did not appear, 
Mrs. Crane packed the little hair-cloth trunk with the 
girl’s slender wardrobe, resolved that no human power 
should prevent her setting out early the next morning 
for Factory Forks. 

The night closed down at last, the big drops of 
rain began to fall, and Lenox did not appear. 

At last Abijah began to grow anxious, fie had 
had a most uncomfortable day of it. In some mys- 
terious way his wife seemed to hold him responsible 


89 


90 


LENOX DARE. 


for Lenox’s absence, and had visited her displeasure 
on him by snappish rejoinders, by sudden explosions 
of temper, or by fits of grim silence that seemed to 
fill the domestic atmosphere like a lowering thunder- 
cloud. 

It was not, therefore, until he had stood at the 
door, and gazed for some time up the road in the hope 
that he should see a small, swift figure emerge from 
the growing darkness, that the toll-keeper mustered 
courage to turn into the sitting-room, where his 
wife, seated in her chair of state, was nursing her 
wrath, and inquired rather deprecatingly : “ You don’t 
s’pose anything can have happened to Lenox, do 
you ? ” 

“ What do you s’pose can have happened to her ? ” 
was the very tart rejoinder. “ That girl knows enough 
to look out for herself when she’s where she ought 
not to be.” 

“ ’Tain’t like Lenox to run off and stay like this,” 
answered Abijah, taking no notice of his wife’s 
stricture. “ It’s goin’ to rain hard, too. I hope she’ll 
get in afore the storm comes down.” Then, without 
waiting for a reply, he shuffled back to his seat at the 
front door, and gazed with unwinking eyes into the 
gray darkness. 

He had sat in this way for more than an hour. 
The wind v T as rising, and the big drops had become a 
heavy shower. At last Mrs. Crane came out to him. 

“ What can that girl think of herself staying out in 
such weather?” she exclaimed. 

One might have detected a little repressed uneasi- 
ness in her voice. 


NEMESIS. 


91 


“ That’s what I’ve been asking myself for the last 
hour,” replied Abijah. fc4 ’Tain’t like Lenox to act 
like this,” he repeated, significantly. 

44 One can never tell what is like that girl,” replied 
Mrs. Crane, but the secret uneasiness was still in her 
voice, and she came to the front door and listened to 
the rising wind and the patter of the rain. They had 
an aerie kind of sound, and the blackness outside 
added to their effect. 

At last Mrs. Crane turned to Abijah, making no 
attempt this time to conceal her growing nervous- 
ness, and inquired, 44 What did you mean when 
you asked me just now if I s’posed anything could 
have happened to Lenox?” 

u Well, I meant to say,” replied the toll-gate keeper, 
his anxiety raising him into a grand indifference to 
the consequences that might follow this speech, “ that 
I ain’t been stone-blind o’ late ! ” 

His ambiguity, and her increasing nervousness, 
came nearly throwing Mrs. Crane into hysterics. 
With an effort she controlled herself. 

44 Abijah Crane,” she said once more, with a slow, 
desperate emphasis on his name, 4 4 will you speak 
this time so that a sensible woman can understand 
you ? ” 

The man rose to his feet. He had something on 
his mind which he could not deliver sitting in his 
chair. 

44 Well, then,” he said, and his deliberate, solemn 
tone was sufficiently effective, 44 I’ve seen that Lenox 
Dare wasn’t herself these days. I’ve watched her. 
I hain’t liked the look in her eyes. But a man some- 


92 


LENOX DARE. 


times learns by experience it ain’t safe for him to tell 
what’s on his mind ! ” 

This was a home-thrust. He had made lighter 
ones, and had to pay the penalty. The fact that Mrs. 
Crane did not at once apply the general remark was 
strong proof of her anxiety. 

“ What have you seen in Lenox Dare’s eyes ? ” she 
asked, in a rather unsteady voice. 

“ I’ve seen that girl was wild, and desperate, and 
half-mad ! ” answered Abijah, quite reckless now 
where his adjectives might strike. “ And when folks 
reach that pass, and are driven to bay, there’s no 
tellin’ what they may do to others, or — them- 
selves ! ” 

Mrs. Crane shuddered. She had had a blow ! The 
force of it was in that last word. She went back into 
the kitchen, where a light was burning, and sat down 
all of a tremble. 

It was a sleepless night to the man and woman 
under the roof of the toll -house. The winds cried 
upon the hills, and rushed loud and fierce through 
the valley of Cherry Hollows. The two listened 
through all the stormy night-watches for a sound at 
the door of feet that never came. 

Mrs. Crane’s conscience awoke under her anxiety, 
and she began to see her conduct in a new light. In 
her secret soul she felt that she had dealt very harshly 
by the orphan. In some faint degree she entered into 
her feeling about the factory, and in her new frame 
of mind could find many things to explain or palliate 
Lenox’s late singular behavior. She had never wil- 
fully disobeyed her, and the woman knew that noth- 


NEMESIS. 


93 


ing short of despair could have driven the young, 
timid girl from her home in that wild night. “ What 
if she had gone suddenly mad, and — ” 

Mrs. Crane would not finish the sentence, even in 
her secret thought, but a shudder went over her. 
She knew the same fear had crossed her husband’s 
mind. 

Toward morning Mrs. Crane lay down on the 
lounge, and, worn out with nervous excitement, fell 
asleep. Suddenly she sat up, her face pale and scared, 
a cold sweat starting all over her. She had dreamed 
that old Colonel Marvell stood before her. She 
saw the glittering of his gray beard, of his white hair, 
as Lenox had seen them in her dream the night be- 
fore. He looked at her with stern, reproachful eyes. 
“What have you been doing to my little girl?” 
he asked. 

In her agitation, on awaking, Mrs. Crane related 
this dream to her husband. His sole comment was : 
“ Well, I never did approve of sendin’ off Lenox 
Dare to -that factory to work. ’Twasn’t the place for 
her. I should have said so, too, if you’d taken the 
trouble to ask my opinion.” 

So the dead husband and the living one seemed to 
conspire against Mrs. Crane. 

At that thought she burst into hysterical sobbing, 
and two or three cups of strong green-tea hardly 
sufficed to quiet her. 

Soon after dawn the rain ceased, and early in the 
morning Abijah started off in quest of Lenox. He 
knew most of her favorite haunts in the woods ; but 
he took the road which led to the creek. He had en- 


94 


LENOX DARE. 


tered the shadowy gloom, and approached the brink 
where the water was deepest, when a sick faintness 
seized his short, heavy frame. He grew very white. 
He could not bring himself to glance into the dark, 
swollen currents, lest something lying there should con- 
firm the horrible fear that had brought him straight 
to this spot. At last, with a shudder, he forced him- 
self to look down. He could see into the depths of 
the black, hurrying water. Nothing was there. In 
his sudden relief he gasped for breath, and the strong 
man was as weak for joy as he had been a moment 
before for dread. 

He returned home at once, and told his wife where 
he had been. When he named the creek, Mrs. Crane 
grew white as a ghost, and sat down. 

The man and woman looked at each other a mo- 
ment without speaking. Then they knew that the 
same unspoken fear had been in the minds of both. 

The toll-gate keeper fortified himself with a much- 
needed breakfast, and set out once more on his search 
for the missing girl. His wife remained at home 
to take his place, and to wait with intent, strained 
senses for the slight figure that never came. 

It was almost dark when Abijah returned for the 
last time. He had been home occasionally through 
the day, and the same question and the same hopeless 
answer had been in the face of the man and woman 
when they met. 

Mrs. Abijah Crane’s worst enemy could hardly 
have desired a sharper punishment for her than the 
night that followed. 

Benjamin Mavis had arrived in the nick of time. 


NEMESIS. 


95 


Early that morning the fact that Lenox was missing 
had first got abroad in Cherry Hollows. It had al- 
ready made a sensation in the secluded little valley 
town. Men and boys were searching the woods, and 
others were talking of dragging the river below the 
dam. Before sunset the story, with all the excite- 
ment of the search, would have spread like wild-fire 
through the country. Several of the neighbors, from 
various motives of curiosity or sj^mpathy, had come 
in to offer their services to Mrs. Crane. 

At the sound of the wheels, the toll-gate keeper 
presented himself at the door. He was always on the 
look-out for Lenox. His solemn face did not brighten 
on seeing young Mavis, who, he fancied, would be the 
last person to have any knowledge of her. 

“ We are in great trouble here!” was his saluta- 
tion. 

He was sure to avail himself of any opportunity 
of confiding his griefs to a listener. 

“ I expected as much,” answered Ben, in a not very 
sympathetic tone. 

The reply startled Abijah. It was anything but 
the sort he had looked for. He stood still, staring in 
silence a moment, then grasped the young man’s arm 
and burst out : “ Do you know anything about our 
lost girl ? ” 

“ I will answer that question to your wife first,” 
answered Ben. “ She is, I believe, the sole authority 
under this roof ! ” 

It was hard on Abijah, but he was rather pachy- 
dermatous at best. In his surprise and eagerness a 
sharper thrust would not have penetrated very deeply. 


96 


LENOX DARE. 


Ben Mavis had a very young man’s supreme contempt 
for a hen-pecked husband. 

It created quite a sensation when the stalwart- 
limbed youth presented himself among the half dozen 
women in Mrs. Crane’s sitting-room. 

In his excitement, Abijali presented the stranger to 
his wife in the abruptest fashion : “ Here’s a }'Oung 
man wants to see you, Abigail ! ” 

The woman was on her feet in an instant. There 
was a ghastly look on her thin, dark-skinned face ; 
her black eyes, with the yellow rings around them, 
which two sleepless nights and an awful dread had 
planted there, seemed ready to start from their sock- 
ets as she gasped out, between hope and dread, 
44 Have you come to bring me any tidings of Lenox 
Dare?” 

Her look, her tone, would have touched most peo- 
ple ; but Ben Mavis’s soft heart was just now hard as 
a nether mill-stone toward the trembling woman be- 
fore him. 

44 1 have come to tell you, Mrs. Crane,” he said, in 
the breathless silence that followed, 44 that I left 
Lenox Dare this morning under my mother’s roof. 
She is very ill, and threatened with brain-fever, from 
all she has lately undergone. But she is with friends 
who have the power and the will to take care of 
her.” 

As he said this, the youth looked strong enough 
and brave enough to defend anything lonely and 
helpless. The women grouped around Mrs. Crane 
felt a strong access of respect for Lenox Dare. The 
fact that one has somebody to take one’s part will 


NEMESIS. 


97 


have an immense influence on minds of a certain 
type. 

In the sudden relief from her worst fears Mrs. 
Crane sank down on a chair, her trembling lips un- 
able to utter a word. 

Abijah and the neighbors crowded around the 
young man with questions. He told them, in his 
simple, straightforward fashion, how Lenox had come 
to them two nights before. 

There was nothing strange in her doing this, he 
said. His grandfather had been Colonel Marvell’s 
friend, and he himself had told her this in his late 
visit. It was natural that the old man’s niece, driven 
from her home, should go where friends and pity 
awaited her, though she had to drag herself thirty 
miles on foot to find them. 

This speech brought Mrs. Crane, white and shak- 
ing, to her feet. 

She had never driven Lenox from her door, she as- 
serted. She had always been good to her. All her 
neighbors would bear witness to that ; and she looked 
from one to another, expecting they would corrobo- 
rate her words. 

In the little^group of women were several who, at 
her late tea-drinking, had been loudest in their de- 
nunciations of Lenox ; but not one of these had now 
the courage to say a word for Mrs. Crane. The tide 
of opinion had set strongly in the absent girl’s favor. 

Ben’s time had come now. He had been waiting 
for it. 

“ Do you call it kindness, Mrs. Crane,” he asked, 
looking steadily into the eyes of the trembling wo- 


98 


LENOX DARE. 


man, u to drive a young, delicate girl like Lenox Dare 
into a great, noisy, crowded factory, to toil from morn- 
ing till night ? Do you call your cruelty kindness, 
when you saw the torture you were inflicting, and re- 
fused to listen, though she begged you to take pity 
on her? and though you knew all the time she would 
have inherited a little fortune from her uncle had you 
not beguiled the old man, in his dotage, into marry- 
ing you ? ” 

This peroration was like the crash of a thunder- 
bolt. Nothing but the thought of Lenox Dare’s piti- 
ful little face could have made Ben Mavis talk like 
that to a woman. There was a dead silence as he 
turned and left the room. 

Before he had started off, the toll-gate keeper 
shuffled up to the wagon. 

“ Give my love to Lenox,” he said, “and tell her 
I’m glad if she’s got into clover ! She knows I al’ays 
was her friend at heart. Hadn’t you better stop and 
take some of her clothes along ? ” 

“ No, thank you,” answered Ben. His wrath had 
spent itself in his last charge. “ Lenox Dare’s friends 
will see that she has everything she wants. Good- 
day, sir.” He wheeled his light wagon around, and 
was out of sight in a few moments. 


CHAPTER VI. 


HOME. 

I T was late in the forenoon when Lenox Dare 
awoke from her long sleep. Mrs. Mavis, in her 
own room, on the watch for the slightest movement, 
was at the bedside in a moment. The great, dark 
eyes stared at her out of the little shadowy face. It 
was worth while for any hunted creature, spent in 
. the flight, beaten down by the storms, to be welcomed 
back to life and hope with such a smile, with such 
a tender, cheery voice. 

“Well, my dear, you have been doing bravely! 
Fifteen hours of sleep ought to make you as good as 
new !” 

Lenox seemed in no hurry to answer. Her brain 
coming out of that long, dreamless slumber, in which 
it had been drowned for hours, was a good deal 
dazed. Her eyes went with a languid sort of wonder 
around the room, took in all its pretty belongings, its 
pink chintz and white draperies, and then came back 
to Mrs. Mavis, on whom they rested with a wist- 
ful, questioning glare. 

“Well, my child, you know who it is?” asked 
again that bright, tender voice. 

“ Yes, you are Ben Mavis’s mother.” It was a 
low, fluttering tone, as though it cost an effort. 

99 


ioo 


LENOX DAKE. 


“ That is true. But I want to be something to 
you, too, my dear !” and the cheery voice faltered a 
little. 

“ What do you want to be to me ?” asked Lenox, 
with a faint wonder in her weary tones. 

“ Oh, some body very nice and thoughtful, that 
will take care of you, and make you happy, and see 
that your heart is as light as the robins that sing 
away the summer in our orchard. Isn’t that some- 
thing you would like me to be ?” 

Mrs. Mavis saw again that wistful, questioning glare. 
Then a sudden tremor went over Lenox’s face. “ Is 
that mothering ?” she cried out sharply. “ He told me 
you said that was what I needed — what you wanted 
to do to me !” 

“ My poor little lambkin,” said Mrs. Mavis, with 
the tears running down her cheeks now, 4 4 that is 
just what it means. Now you have come to me, and 
given me a chance to show you, you shall find out 
what it is like.” 

Then all of a sudden, Lenox burst out into a wild, 
wailing cry: “I never had any mothering!” she 
sobbed. “ Nobody ever showed me what it was 
like !” 

Mrs. Mavis did not answer with any words. She 
could not. Her soul was melted with pity, as she 
stood by the bedside stroking Lenox’s hair, with her 
soft mother-touch, while that wild crying had its way 
— tore itself out from the girl’s heart in sobs that 
shook her like a leaf in summer gales. 

The storm did the girl good. It was like the break- 
ing up of winter-locked streams at the blowing of the 


HOME. 


101 


south wind. During the last week she had hardly 
shed a tear. After a long time she grew quieter. 
Mrs. Mavis seized her first chance. Her instincts 
taught her not to interfere with this wild weeping. 
They also showed her at this critical' juncture that it 
would be wisest to treat recent events in a straight- 
forward, matter-of-fact fashion. Lenox’s mind and 
nerves had been through a terrible strain. Her im- 
agination would have a strong tendency to live over 
just the harrowing scenes through which she had 
passed. Until all morbid fancies were dispelled her 
recovery would be hopeless. 

With this feeling uppermost, Mrs. Mavis spoke 
now : “You have shown yourself the wisest, bravest 
girl in the world, Lenox ! You knew who were your 
friends ; you came straight to them in your trouble. 
It was a long, hard way, I know ; but that is to be 
thought of no more ; indeed, we are all of us now to 
have but one thought about this whole matter.” 

Lenox asked with her eyes only what Mrs. Mavis 
meant. The girl lay with flushed, wet cheeks, quite 
worn out with her weeping. 

“ That thought is that you were coming home !” 
answered Mrs. Mavis, with tender earnestness. “ And 
what the home is — you are to make haste and get 
well, and find out.” 

“ Am I never to go back to Cherry Hollows — to 
Mrs. Crane — to that dreadful Factory ?” asked Lenox, 
and again the terror was in the poor child’s eyes and 
voice. 

Mrs. Mavis took the thin brown fingers in her own. 
“ Lenox,” she said, her voice thrilled all through 


102 


LENOX DARE. 


with solemn tenderness, “ I promise you before God 
that you shall never go away from us so long as you 
live !” 

There was a little silence between them. In the 
stillness they could hear the robins singing outside. 

When Mrs. Mavis spoke again, it was with her 
usual cheery tones. “And now, Lenox, you have 
but one thing to do. All the rest you may safely 
leave to us.” 

“ What is that ?” asked Lenox. 

“ You are to help yourself to get well. That will 
not be very hard work, will it ?” and she smiled. 

“ I will try,” said Lenox, softly. 

Mrs. Mavis wished the little, sad face would have 
ever so faintly reflected her smile, but she thought 
to herself, “ That will come in time.” 

Then she brought water and bathed the flushed 
face, and the girl came up, with a little waiter that 
held the most tempting breakfast ; and Lenox, 
propped on her pillows, ate a few morsels from the old- 
fashioned china, and the doctor came in with some- 
thing about his white hair, and shrewd old face, that 
made her think of Colonel Marvell. She liked his 
brisk, pleasant air, and she would have laughed at 
his jokes, if she could have laughed at anything in 
the world. He told Mrs. Mavis, privately, that the 
child was tiding over the danger. She was in the 
right hands, and as for the look on her face which 
hurt Mrs. Mavis — she must have patience, and some 
day, all of a sudden, she would see it break up, and 
clear away forever ! 

A little before nightfall Benjamin Mavis reached 


HOME. 


103 


home. His gray mare, with the light buggy, had 
made wonderful time from Cherry Hollows. Ben 
related the whole scene at the toll-gate keeper’s to 
his much interested mother. She secretly rejoiced 
over his terrible charge on Mrs. Crane, and said, with 
a little, half-exultant laugh, as she surveyed the 
manly youth : “ Well, Ben, she deserved every word ; 
but I never supposed it was in you to say all that to 
a woman.” 

“ A fellow doesn’t know what is in him, mother, 
until he’s seen what I did, when that poor child came 
staggering up our walk, and stretched out her hands 
to me with that pitiful cry. But,” added Ben, get- 
ting up, throwing down his whip, and striding ex- 
citedly about the room, “ I hope another time the 
Fates will send me some more valiant foe than a 
cross-grained, addle-pated, hysterical old woman !” 

In a little while he went up to Lenox. Her face 
brightened when he came in. She did not know 
where he had been that day, but Mrs. Mavis had 
insisted that a statement of the facts would, in the 
end, prove best for Lenox ; and in this instance, too, 
she had carried her point, rather in the teeth of her 
son’s wishes. 

Lenox gave a little scared cry when she learned 
that Ben had just returned from the toll-gate keeper’s. 

“Why, my dear,” said the voice, whose softness 
might have soothed a startled infant, and, as she 
spoke, Mrs. Mavis seated herself on the edge of the 
bed, “ nothing has happened to give you an anxious 
thought. Ben went to Cherry Hollows for your 
sake ; and he has shown everybody there that you 


104 


LENOX DARE. 


have a brave knight to defend you. I really am 
proud of him! Come, Ben, tell our little girl your 
story !” 

Ben told it. Lenox drank in every word. She 
could understand a little better than anybody else 
the terrible blow Ben Mavis’s last remark must 
have been to Mrs. Crane. When he had finished, 
she found it was a relief to know that her fate was 
no longer a mystery at the toll-gate. 

Not that Lenox would ever have felt that she 
owed Mrs. Crane any apologies for her flight. The 
woman, in her ill-tempered moods, had often told 
the girl the only possible favor she could do her 
would be to take herself out of her sight forever. 

But Lenox could see now how wisely Mrs. Mavis 
had acted in this whole matter. 

She had a peaceful night, and peaceful, restful 
days and nights followed. Sheltered in that happy, 
soft-lined nest of a home, Lenox Dare’s life-forces 
slowly rallied. The threatened brain-fever was 
averted. The change was very gradual, proving how 
long and terrible the strain had been on the poor 
girl’s mind and body. 

She saw no one outside the family except the 
doctor, and slept a great deal of the time, which, hd 
declared, did her more good than all his remedies ; 
but her sad eyes made Mrs. Mavis’s heart ache. 
Long afterward, Lenox Dare said to her, speaking 
of that time : “ It may take a little while to get used 
even to Heaven. Everything at first will be so 
changed !” 

J ust a week from the day on which she had come 


HOME. 


105 


to them Ben took the girl down-stairs, in his arms, 
and laid her on a lounge under the wide-roofed 
piazza. Flowering creepers hung thick about the 
columns ; but between these was a magnificent view 
of the country. 

The Mavis cottage, wide and low, and gray and ga- 
bled, stood on the summit of a great pasture-clothed 
height. Below it the old town of Briarswild led its 
peaceful life among the hills and valleys of one of the 
finest agricultural counties in the heart of New York 
State. No railroad branch from the Central or the 
Erie had thus far penetrated its quiet. The principal 
street of Briarswild was almost a mile from the great 
Mavis farm. It seemed to Lenox as though the 
whole world could be seen from that piazza. The 
rich meadow lands, the shining river, the scattered 
farm-houses, the villages gleaming white against the 
summer greenery, the noble and beautiful forms of 
the hills on the horizon, made up the varied picture 
on which the girl gazed for the first time, on which 
her e} T es were to dwell for years with something 
of her first wonder and delight. 

It was a sultry, breezeless morning in the valleys, 
but a soft wind blew upon the hills. Lenox lay upon 
the lounge and gazed away into the distance, and a 
still brightness grew upon her face like light from 
behind a cloud, and the two — the mother and son — 
watched the girl silently. That was the first light 
Mrs. Mavis had ever seen in her face. 

Lenox lay a long time, not speaking a word, but 
drinking in, with lips a little apart, the noble view. 
At last she turned to Ben Mavis, who was watching 


106 


LENOX DARE. 


her as intently as his mother, a little, pleased smile 
unbent her mouth, and made her face look more 
childish than ever. 

“ Did I tell you the truth, Lenox ?” he asked, an- 
swering her bit of smile with his own bright one. 
He paid her each day a brief visit. That was all 
the doctor or his mother, fearing the effect of the 
smallest excitement on the girl, would permit. 

“ Not one half of it !” she answered fervently. 
“It makes me believe that the old story of the 
‘ Happy Islands,’ which lay on the horizon where the 
sailors could see them at sunset, must have been true 
after all.” 

“ That is a wonderfully pretty fancy, my dear,” 
said Mrs. Mavis. “ I never thought of it though. 
I have had this view before my eyes for more than 
twenty years.” 

While his mother was saying this Ben suddenly 
started off as though a new idea had struck him. 
He returned in a little while, leading Dainty close 
to the piazza. 

As soon as Lenox caught sight of the creature a 
great light came into her face ; she lifted her head 
from the pillows, and stretched out her hands. “ Oh, 
beautiful pony, are you come again ?” she cried. 

Dainty seemed to know the voice. She bent for- 
ward her small head, her quivering ears, and gave 
a low neigh. 

“ Oh, Ben, how could you ! ” said his mother, re- 
in on stratingly. “ She can never bear it.” 

“Yes, she can. I am wiser than you and the doc- 
tor this time,” answered the youth, good-naturedly. 


HOME. 


107 


Then he turned to Lenox. “ You are Dainty’s mis- 
tress from this hour,” he said. “ She is your sole 
property. I’ve been training her of late. I will 
trust you for a twenty miles ride on her back as soon 
as you are able to sit there ! Now isn’t that a pres- 
ent worth getting well for, Lenox Dare ?” 

The next instant she was off the lounge — she had 
rushed across the piazza — she, who, for the last 
week, had only walked feebly from her bed to her 
chair — her arms were around Dainty’s neck, she 
was talking to her, stroking her, calling her her own 
beautiful gray pony ! 

“ Oh, if I could only mount her again — if I could 
only ride a little way!” she said to Ben, and her 
eyes rayed out light. 

“So you shall!” he replied, catching her excite- 
ment. 

“ Ben, are you gone insane too ? ” exclaimed his 
mother. 

“You shall answer that question yourself before 
the hour is out,” he rejoined, gaily ; and the next 
instant he had lifted the girl and set her on the colt’s 
back. The slight figure swayed a moment, and then 
sat erect, in the soft, pink robe that had been made, 
long ago, for a little, rosy-cheeked maiden, years 
younger than Lenox. 

As Dainty stepped lightly off under Ben’s careful 
guiding, Lenox laughed. What a glad, ringing 
laugh it was ! 

Mrs. Mavis stood and watched the pair like one 
spell-bound. This sudden change in Lenox seemed 
to her like a miracle. She was so astonished that she 


108 


LENOX DARE. 


could hardly tell whether she was glad or fright- 
ened. 

They went up the road at least half a mile before 
they turned back. Dainty behaved admirably. She 
seemed to understand the situation, to accept her 
new mistress, as she stepped proudly along, her eyes 
glancing, her neck arching proudly under that light 
weight. 

“ To think it is my very own horse !” said Lenox 
to Ben, as he walked by her side, with one hand in 
Dainty’s gray mane. “ What made you think of 
giving her to me ?” 

“ Oh, I thought you had fairly earned her by that 
wonderful talk of yours the day you first saw her !” 

The next instant Ben could have bitten his tongue 
out for that speech. He saw the cloud darken 
Lenox’s face ; he knew what old, harrowing associa- 
tions had revived in her mind. 

“ If it had not been for Dainty, I should not be 
here to day !” she said, gravely. 

“ You’re not once to think of that, Lenox,” he 
said. “ You’re only to think about the glorious 
times you are to have with her.” 

She smiled at him then. Her smile reflected a 
great many things in her heart and brain at that mo- 
ment. 

“ How good you are ! What am I to call you ?” 
she ended, abruptly. 

“ Why, Ben, of course. As though I could have 
any other name for you, Lenox !” 

“ Well, then, how good you are — Ben !” 

Lenox came back with flushed cheeks and radiant 


HOME. 


109 


eyes. It did not seem as though she. could be the 
same .girl they had brought down- stairs that morning. 
When she alighted, she went straight to Mrs. Mavis ; 
she put her arms around the woman’s neck, and clung 
there. 

“ Oh, I am so happy !” she cried. “ I am going to 
get well. I am almost that now. It has all come to 
me at once !” 

It was the first time Lenox Dare had caressed any- 
body since old Colonel Marvell died. 

Just such soft arms had once clung about Mrs. 
Mavis’s neck, while a girlish voice cooed loving words 
in her ear. The touch, the speech, went now to 
her heart of hearts. She folded her arms about the 
orphan. 

“ You shall be happy,, my child,” she said, and her 
tender voice faltered. “You shall be — my little 
girl, Lenox !” 

After this Lenox Dare took her place quietly and 
naturally in the household. The lonely, misjudged or- 
phan soon grew used to kindliest care and daily love. 

In this new, blessed home-atmosphere, in the 
warmth and light about her, her chilled, half-stunted 
girlhood sent out vigorous shoots on every side. She 
thrived like some plant which feels the sun and the 
soft winds about its roots, and waves its gay blossoms 
joyfully in its native air. 

Lenox Dare was no longer the silent, absorbed girl 
she had been at Cherry Hollows. She was full of 
eager, bounding life, of joyful interest in the things 
about her. Many of her little oddities and peculi- 
arities slipped lightly off her, as the calyx slips oft 


110 


LENOX DALE. 


from the expanding flower. In the new home there 
was, of course, much for her to learn ; but Mrs. 
Mavis was the gentlest of teachers ; and Lenox Dare’s 
instincts made it easy for her to adopt the graces and 
refinements of the new life about her. 

The years that followed were a time of quiet 
growth and development. Lenox lived to be thank- 
ful, long afterward, that the change in her fortune 
had not been at this time of a more ambitious kind. 
A long, peaceful, sunny period intervened between 
her past and a future of which she could have no 
faint anticipations. 

She could not perceive, either, except in the dim- 
mest way, what life and brightness she brought with 
her to the gray gabled-cottage that crowned the great 
Mavis farm, the largest in the county. 

The owner had died suddenly, in his prime, six 
years before. Three years later Janet, his one little 
daughter, had followed her father ; so there was a 
vacant place awaiting Lenox by the hearthstone and 
in the hearts of those to whom she had fled. 

Ben, just ready to enter college, had been quite 
too young when his father died to assume the charge 
of the great farm. He had, even now, only a gen- 
eral supervision of the land and laborers, and was 
kept sufficiently busy ; but his mother insisted that 
his young manhood should not be burdened with 
care and toil. 

“ Better the land should never yield another har- 
vest, Ben, than that you should grow old before }'our 
time,” she said, gazing with tender eyes on her stal- 
wart boy. 


HOME. 


Ill 


Mrs. Mavis was one of those women who have 
the art of making a home delightful. Her cui- 
sine had long enjoyed a reputation throughout the 
country. Every room in the house showed in all its 
simple appointments her tasteful handiwork, her fine 
eye for bright, harmonious colors. 

The flower-beds in her front yard were all summer 
one sea of varied bloom ; and flowers, and birds, and 
mosses, and leaves that held all their autumn glow, 
gave to the interior of the cottage an air of summer 
through the longest winter day. 

Mrs. Mavis found a great satisfaction in arranging 
Lenox’s new wardrobe. It was strangely like her 
old habit of preparing the dead Janet’s garments. 
It seemed as though the new clothes had almost as 
much effect on the girl’s looks as her new happiness. 
But both wrought an immense change. In a short 
time very few people would have recognized Lenox 
Dare for the girl that went that hot July morning to 
gather blackberries in the pastures of Cherry Hollows. 
She began to see company, to meet girls of her own 
age. Her shyness gradually wore off. She found, to 
her immense surprise, that people listened, interested 
and amused, to her talk. But she had no idea what 
a perpetual surprise and delight her freshness, her 
quaintness, her joyous spirits were to those who were 
constantly with her. 

Of course people were curious about her sudden ad- 
vent at the Mavis farm ; but the story of the old 
friendship between the families explained matters as 
easily at Briarswild as at Cherry Hollows. 

It seemed that a queen might lay off her crown, 


112 


LENOX DARE. 


and turn her back on all her palace-splendors, to 
dwell in that warm, bright, home atmosphere ; and 
there, in a little while, sheltered and happy, loving 
and beloved, Lenox Dare took the place of the dead, 
and became the young daughter of the house. 


CHAPTER VII. 


INTO BUSINESS. 

I T was more than two years since Robert Beres- 
ford painted his picture in Cherry Hollows Glen. 
It was more than two months since his marriage with 
Stacey Meredith. Her father’s illness, which so 
abruptly summoned her from her lover’s side, proved 
a long, and at last a fatal one. 

The dead banker had been regarded by all the 
world as a rich man. To everybody’s immense sur- 
prise he died insolvent. Stacey was his only daughter. 
She had been brought up with the habits and tastes 
of a wealthy heiress. She came a portionless bride 
to Robert Beresford. He and his young sister had 
inherited a handsome fortune from their dead father. 
At the time of the elder man’s death, his son was a 
mere stripling at college. The orphans were the last 
of their race. After he had graduated at Harvard 
young Beresford went abroad and studied awhile in 
Germany ; but his artistic tastes, of which he had 
given evidence in early boyhood, soon drew him to 
Italy, where he spent the best part of three happy 
years in his studies and his work. 

Meanwhile, the family property, the inheritance of 
several generations, was rapidly melting away. 

113 


114 


LENOX DARE. 


Guardians and trustees had the management of it, 
while the young owner spent his time over his can- 
vases, or studied in the famous picture-galleries of 
the world the works of the masters. Robert Beres- 
ford had no concern about his fortune, which he took 
for granted was in good hands so long as his divi- 
dends reached him promptly. Even after his return 
home he had no inkling of the real state of his 
affairs. He had fallen in love ; he had courted and 
at last married the woman of his choice ; he had 
taken her to the Beresford homestead — the old, 
square, stone mansion, in the midst of its ample, culti- 
vated grounds, where he had spent his happy boyhood. 

He had, all this time, no suspicion that the founda- 
tions of his fortune were crumbling beneath him. 
The thunderbolt fell in a moment out of a clear sky. 
The newly-married pair had returned only the week 
before from their bridal tour to their home. This 
was in one of the picturesque old towns that cluster 
around Boston — so near that they feel the pulsation 
of the mighty city’s heart, so far off that an air of 
Eden-like repose and peace invests them. 

Here young Beresford learned one day that the 
two men who had had for years the principal control 
of his fortune, whom he and his father had trusted 
with absolute confidence, were bankrupts. Then the 
whole truth came to light. These men had be- 
trayed his interests, and used his funds to advance 
their own fortunes. A large part of the property had 
been swallowed up in rash aiid ruinous speculations. 
The managers had sought in these desperate ventures 
to retrieve themselves, and to conceal the real nature 


INTO BUSINESS. 


115 


of their transactions from young Beresford. The 
story is quite too long, and, alas ! quite too common 
to enlarge on here. The dullest imagination can 
supply all the details. They involved not only the 
principal managers, but others, who, in various ways, 
having some interest in young Beresford’s affairs, had 
tampered with their trust. Some had been only weak 
where others had been dishonest ; but the result was 
that Robert Beresford was wakened suddenly from 
his dreams of young love and his ardent ambitions to 
find himself, with the habits which a youth of wealth 
and ease had made second nature, with his luxu- 
riously-reared wife and young sister on his hands, 
and with his fortunes in such ruinous plight’ that it 
was doubtful whether he could save even the old 
Beresford homestead from the general wreck. 

Before young Beresford could fully realize his 
changed fortunes, an old friend and distant connec- 
tion of his father’s — a shrewd, prosperous business 
man — came to his rescue. This friend was at the 
head of a vast iron importing and manufacturing 
house, which had extensive branches in South Amer- 
ica and heavy interests in Europe. He offered young 
Beresford, whom he had always known, and for whom 
he had a fatherly liking, the place which his own son, 
about to take charge of the house in South America, 
would leave vacant. This would involve a partner- 
ship in the business, a steady devotion of time and 
thought to its interests. The position would secure 
Beresford an income that would relieve him from all 
pecuniary anxieties for the present. It would prob- 
ably, in the next twenty years, insure him a fortune 
equal to the one which he had lost. 


116 


LENOX DARE. 


Young Beresford understood all the advantages of 
this offer; he knew that it was one that does not 
come, in crises like this, to one man in a million. 

“ Come, my dear boy,” said his father’s old friend, 
arguing with the true commercial genius, “throw 
your paint-boxes and your picture^, and all that sort 
of thing, to the dogs, and settle down to some real 
work in life. Make money, instead of idling and 
dreaming. You’ve got the true Beresford grit in you, 
and it only needed a few hard knocks to bring it to 
the surface.” 

The young man looked at the older one as he said 
this. He took in, with his artist instinct, the hard 
business head, the shrewd, worldly-wise face lighted 
up now by some unusual kindliness. 

Would he, one of these days, be just such a hard, 
cool-headed old Philistine ? he wondered. But he an- 
swered : “ Give me until to-morrow to think over 
your offer, Mr. Wentworth. You shall have my an- 
swer at that time. As for my thanks — the man who 
has just proposed to me all you have, will wait for 
those, too.” 

“ I see ! The young fellow has a hankering after 
his paint-boxes and canvases,” said the old man, 
after the younger had left his office. “ But there’s 
sound stuff at bottom. I’ll trust that to bring him 
out right at last. Of course it will be tough on him 
at first ; but he’s a fine fellow, and a lucky young dog, 
and if he once knuckles down to business the non- 
sense will soon be taken out of him.” 

Robert Beresford went out that night to his home, 
less than a dozen miles from Boston, with a feeling 


INTO BUSINESS. 


117 


that a great crisis had come in his life, that his future 
would be shaped and colored by the choice which he 
must now make. He did not go as usual to his 
young wife on his return ; he went up a single flight 
of stairs in the large, old-fashioned mansion, and 
turned to a room on the right. It was his studio. 

The young man paced up and down this room with 
feelings into which, I suppose, an artist could alone 
fully enter. Since he returned from Italy, three 
years ago, this room had been to him the dearest place 
in the world. Its ample space, its fine light, its stores 
of old, rare and beautiful things, made it the beau- 
ideal of an artist’s studio. The young owner had 
gathered here a world of treasures — things that in 
his wide travels had struck his fancy, or held some 
old historic association in his thoughts. 

Persian rugs lay on the floor, and medieval tapes- 
tries hung on the walls or in the corners. Rich fab- 
rics, gorgeous stuffs, blazed on chairs and lounges. 
Antiques, vases, rare and precious specimens of pot- 
tery from all schools, bore witness to their owner’s 
culture and taste. Between these walls, in the midst 
of these treasures which kindled his imagination and 
inspired his thoughts, Robert Beresford had hoped to 
spend the best years — to do the real work of his 
life. The portfolios that lay on an old carved table 
of black wood were full of memoranda, to be worked 
up afterward into noble form and beautiful color. 
These had been gathered everywhere, with the pa- 
tient, loving temper of the artist. Work in water- 
color, in oils, and in all sorts of stages, lay around. 
In one place hung an almost completed study of 


118 


LENOX DAKE. 


tossing waves, and wet, brown rocks, and dripping 
weeds, and crumbling pier. Close by it was a more 
ambitious study of a mountain-slope, with the glitter 
of sunlight on its lofty pines, and the glow of a crim- 
son sunset on its crest. There were some pretty, 
half-finished pictures in genre lying about. These 
had cost Robert Beresford that something which work 
always costs any true artist — which pen cannot write 
nor tongue utter. In the middle of the room stood a 
large, new, oak easel, only a few days before the gift 
of his friend and college chum, Jack Leith. He had 
never used it yet. Was he never to use it, after all ? 

Robert Beresford asked himself this question as he 
paced up and down the room, and heard the low, 
dreary cry of the autumn wind outside. It seemed to 
the young man that he should hear the cry of that 
wind at times through all his life. He had come here 
as the fittest place to make the resolve on which his 
future hinged. Should he close with his old friend’s 
offer ? Should he turn his back on all the hopes and 
dreams of his young manhood ? Could he force him- 
self to settle down, like most of his kind, into a mere 
money-grubber ? Could he spend his life in an ig- 
noble struggle after the poor prizes and ambitions of 
the world ? 

In this way Robert Beresford put the question to 
his soul that night. For himself there could have 
been but one answer. He would have counted no 
sacrifice too great for his art. 

A Bohemian life had certain attractions for a tem- 
perament like his. In his young pride and strength 
he would not have regarded the loss of his property 


INTO BUSINESS. 


119 


as a very serious misfortune. He would have taken 
the chances with his art. 

It was only the thought of his wife that made 
young Beresford hesitate. Could he ask the beauti- 
ful, delicatety-reared woman to share his struggle and 
his poverty ? He knew enough of the awards of art 
to see that the sacrifice must be a long one ; that it 
would involve all sorts of limitations and economies 
for the woman who had bound up her fate with his. 
Could he lay such burdens on her slight shoulders ? 
All his manhood, all his high, knightly spirit recoiled 
at the thought. 

Young Beresford had won praise for his work in 
high quarters, both at home and abroad. In Paris 
exhibitions, in London academies, his pictures had 
been studied and admired for their graceful senti- 
ment, for some rare qualities in conception and exe- 
cution. This might have intoxicated weaker brains. 
But Robert Beresford was wise enough to see that all 
these things did not prove him a great artist. Per- 
haps, he reasoned, the world would not lose anything 
if he never painted another picture. Could he have 
been assured in that hour of doubt and wavering that 
he had proved himself a genius there could have 
been no further question with him. The world would 
have had its claim on him. In that case, even those 
he loved must take their chances with his art. But 
Robert Beresford told himself — what a good many 
critics would have disputed — that he had thus far 
shown himself only a clever artist. If he were more 
than this it would take years to prove it ; and, mean- 
while, there was his wife, there was his young sister 
also, whose fortunes had been wrecked with his own ! 


120 


LENOX DARE. 


He stopped in his walk when he heard a soft knock 
at the door. He turned, and saw a lovely vision 
standing there with a smile on its lips, and a bewitch- 
ing archness in its eyes. 

“ Am I getting to be an old story, Robert,” asked 
the young wife, half gayly, half seriously, “ that you 
come first to your studio instead of to me? ” 

“ You could not ask such a question and be in 
earnest, Stacey,” he said, going to her and leading 
her into the room. 

“ Well, then, must I be jealous of your pictures ? ” 

u When I have not touched a canvas since our 
marriage ! ” 

But Robert, I feel that something is the matter. 
Is it that trouble you told me about yesterday ? ” 

He had hinted lightly and rapidly as possible of 
some disturbance in his business affairs ; but he had 
left her mostly in the dark regarding his fallen for- 
tunes. Now the truth must come. 

“ There is more of that trouble. Look at me ! 
Your husband is a poor man, Stacey Beresford ! ” 

She was standing close by his side, with one little, 
soft hand on his arm. She looked startled, bewil- 
dered. 

“ O, Robert, what do you mean ? What dreadful 
thing has happened to you? ” she cried out. 

“ It is a long story, Stacey ; so long that we will 
not go into its details now. I have been the victim 
of weakness and wickedness, of selfishness and fraud. 
My fortune has melted away in dishonest hands, until 
it has all vanished.” 

“ Is poverty a very bad thing, Robert ? ” asked the 
young wife, gravely. 


INTO BUSINESS. 


121 


“ Very bad, you ignorant little woman. Of course 
it has different stages, and very different meanings to 
different people ; but it involves at best limitations 
and privations, constant small worries and wearisome 
economies. I must honestly tell you, Stacey, I think 
poverty would be to you and to me, because of you, 
a very bad thing.” 

Stacey Beresford lifted her golden-lashed, violet 
eyes to her husband, and looked steadily in his face. 

44 Robert, my husband,” she said, 4 4 1 am not afraid 
of this poverty. I would rather share it with you, 
bear its burdens and make its sacrifices, than be the 
wife of any other man, though he owned the world !” 

As she said this, her eyes gazing at him with proud 
tenderness, and the soft pink in her cheeks deepening 
to the reddest rose, Robert Beresford made up his 
mind. 

44 Stacey,” he said, in his tone a solemn, tender 
depth which she had never heard there before, 
44 please God, you shall never know what this pov- 
erty is. I have a man’s strong brain, a man’s stout 
arm. You may trust them.” 

44 But what are you going t6 do, Robert ? ” and as 
she asked the question, her look said that she believed 
there was nothing in the world that this man, so 
grand in his courage, so gentle iu his tenderness, so 
great above all other men, could not do. 

44 This am I going to do ! ” answered Robert Beres- 
ford, and then he told his wife of the offer Josiah 
Wentworth had made him that afternoon. 

She drank in every word. When he had ceased 
speaking her gaze went slowly about the studio. 


122 


LENOX DARE. 


“ But, Robert,” she said, with a woman’s quick intu- 
ition, “ will you have to give up your pictures if you 
go into this business ? I know what your painting is 
to you.” 

“ Whatever it is to me, I am not sure it could ever 
have made me a great artist, Stacey.” He tried to 
speak lightly, but, despite himself, his voice broke a 
little. 

Stacey’s quick ear caught the sound. “ I see how 
it is,” she said, with quivering lips, and eyes suddenly 
dimmed with tears. “ You are going to sacrifice 
yourself, your dearest work, your noblest hopes, for 
my sake, Robert.” 

“ I am going to take care of the woman I mar- 
ried ! ” said Robert Beresford, and though his voice 
was tender, there was a ring of fixed purpose in it, 
and he set his jaws sternly. 

“ I never cared much when poor papa lost his 
money,” said Stacey, very seriously. “ I knew I had 
you , Robert. Now I wish, for your sake, I had the 
fortune.” 

When she said that, Robert Beresford put out his 
arms and drew his wife to him. 

“ For better or for worse,” he repeated. “No wom- 
an having said that for me, shall find it was for the 
worse.” 

That night Robert Beresford gathered up his un- 
finished pictures, and his crowded portfolios, and car- 
ried them, with the great oak easel, into a small room 
that opened out of his studio. There were tears in 
his eyes — the bitterest they had ever held. He 
dared not, at this crisis, reveal his purpose to any of 


INTO BUSINESS. 


123 


his friends, lest their remonstrances should shake it. 
When his work was done it seemed to him that he had 
slain the best part of himself. 

It was years before Robert Beresford sat down again 
before the oak easel. He felt then that it was too late 
for him ever to paint a great picture. 

The next day Beresford went into the private of- 
fice of Josiah Wentworth and said to him, “ I have 
made up my mind to accept your offer.” 

The words, few, and to the point, pleased the old 
man’s keen business instincts. “ Bravo ! ” he said, 
grasping the younger’s hand, while his shrewd face 
actually beamed on him. “ I knew you’d see where 
your interests lay, and let the pictures go. True 
Beresford grit ! ” 

But the young man was not so sure of that. In- 
deed, it seemed to him at that moment that he was 
not sure of anything in the world except the shining 
in Stacey’s eyes last night. 

When his brother painters learned that Robert 
Beresford had entered into partnership with the great 
iron concern they, said a born artist had “ gone to 
the wall ! ” 


CHAPTER VIII 


IN THE PINE WOODS. 

I T was now almost three years since Lenox Dare 
came to Briars wild. Nothing very remarkable 

had happened during this time. It had been to her 
one of quiet home happiness, and healthful develop- 
ment. Long before this she had grown quite accus- 
tomed to being cared for and petted, to finding herself 
a central object of interest to those about her. It is 
wonderful how naturally and easily the saddest of us 
take our happiness when it comes — as though it 
were, after all, the human creature’s birthright. In 
the atmosphere of her new home the girl’s real nature 
opened itself. What a joyous, magnetic creature she 
was ! How full of youth, of intense enjoyment, 
of bright, inspiring presence ! If she were gone from 
the cottage for a few hours they missed her as though 
half the life had vanished. She still had her old pas- 
sion for nature, her love of books ; but she no longer 
indulged these to the exclusion of everything else. 
Mrs. Mavis could not conceive that a young girl was 
properly brought up who had never been to school. 
It was a miracle, she said to Ben, that the girl had 
managed to glean such an amount of knowledge from 
old Colonel Marvell’s library ; but, for all that, and 

124 


IN THE PINE WOODS. 


125 


for all her unquestionable superiority to other girls 
of her age, Mrs. Mavis set her heart on Lenox’s at- 
tending Briarswild Academy. 

There was something to be learned in school out- 
side of books, the sensible little woman averred, and 
so Lenox went to the morning recitations for two 
years. 

This surrounding her with young life and with girls 
of her own age was a wholesome experience for her. 
She shrank from her school life at first, but, in a lit- 
tle while, she enjoyed it immensely. It was wonder- 
ful how soon she overtook and outstripped her school- 
fellows in the studies where she had been far behind 
them. Her wide range of general literature was to 
them something marvellous. She was a favorite with 
her young companions, and had her schoolgirl friend- 
ships, which perhaps did her quite as much good as 
her lessons. 

During these years Ben Mavis and Lenox Dare 
had been thrown constantly together, not only under 
the home -roof, but in all their varied, out-door expe- 
ditions. They had here the deepest likings in com- 
mon, and the pure-souled, frank-hearted youth, and 
the maiden, joyous and radiant as the summer morn- 
ing, were off almost every day on some adventure. 

Ben taught Lenox a world of things in which 
young girls are apt to be sadly deficient ; taught her 
to ride, to drive, to row, to swim, to fire a pistol, to 
send an arrow straight to its target. Mrs. Mavis 
sometimes demurred a little at these masculine sports ; 
but, in the end, Ben always had his way. 

It was late in the afternoon of a lovely June day 


126 


LENOX DALE. 


when Dainty brought her young mistress across the 
old creek-bridge, from which the road led up through 
half a mile of pine woods to the lane at the back of 
the Mavis farm. 

Lenox had been down into the town that afternoon 
on some errand, and then, beguiled by the beauty of 
the day, had spurred off among the hills, and made a 
wide detour on her return. As she came dashing 
across the creek, horse and rider made a striking pict- 
ure. Lenox had profited by Ben’s training; but, 
then, he often assured her, she was a born horse- 
woman. She sat her young mare admirably. Her 
slight, girlish figure harmonized with Dainty’s small, 
graceful build, with the arching neck and the proudly 
borne head. 

The folds of Lenox’s dark green riding-skirt floated 
against Dainty’s gray mane. She wore the dress and 
the little velvet cap with the solitary black plume 
for the first time. They were a present from Mrs. 
Mavis the day before. She took delight in seeing the 
girl prettily dressed. 

Nobody could have suspected Lenox was the girl 
who, three years ago that summer, had leaned over 
the fence and gazed into the depths of Cherry Hollows 
Glen. Her cheeks had rounded, and the little peaked 
face had changed its shy, wistful look, and was full 
of life and happiness. Her great, dark eyes shone 
like suns that afternoon with the thoughts that had 
come to quicken heart and brain in her long, solitary 
ride. She had only crossed the bridge, and struck 
into the shadows of the pine road, when a voice 
called her. She drew Dainty up, and in an instant 


IN THE PINE WOODS. 


127 


the creature stood quite still, though her eyes flashed, 
and her small limbs quivered. 

The next moment Ben Mavis burst out from the 
shadow of the pines, with a laugh. He, too, had 
grown a little stouter and taller in these years, and 
the face under his broad-brimmed straw hat had 
grown handsomer and manlier, without losing any of 
its bright frankness. 

44 Ah, Lenox,” he said, coming up to the saddle, 
with a merry glance, 44 you and Dainty have been at 
your old tricks — running off again.” 

44 1 couldn’t help it, Ben,” replied Lenox, with a 
bird-like flutter of her restless head. 44 1 had the 
best intentions of coming straight home when I set 
out, but it was just impossible. There never was 
quite such a day before ! It drew me away into the 
hills. Such a ride as I and Dainty have had by 
Moose Bend, and through Berry Gap. It was ” — 
hesitating a moment — 44 indescribable ! ” 

44 Your eyes describe it all,” said Ben, gazing at 
the glowing face as he stroked Dainty’s mane. 
44 They shine like stars ! ” 

44 That must be because I have had such a grand 
time ! How long have you been waiting for me, 
Ben ? ” 

44 Oh, a quarter of an hour, perhaps. I knew, you 
see, however good your intentions might be, that 
when you once got on Dainty’s back the air, the 
light, and the perfect day, would run away with 
you. We ought to understand each other pretty well 
by this time, Lenox ! ” 

44 After seeing each other a good part of every day 


128 


LENOX DARE. 


for almost three }^ears !” she answered with a little 
merry laugh ; and then a swift change came over her 
face. She flung her arms around Dainty’s neck. 
Ben knew perfectly what was in her thought. She 
never forgot what a share that young horse had 
borne in her fortunes. 

But Cherry Hollows was not often alluded to at 
the Mavis cottage. It was partly for the sake of 
diverting her thoughts that Ben said, 44 So you had 
a glorious time skylarking off by yourself among the 
hills !” 

Lenox unclasped her arms, and the slight girlish 
figure sat erect in the saddle. Her eyes — all their 
darkness filled with beautiful light — suddenly shone 
on him. 44 It was not all 4 skylarking,’ she said. 
44 Oh, Ben,” leaning forward a little so that the young 
delicate profile shone out clear under its crown of 
dark hair, 44 I learned something about you this 
afternoon !” 

44 About me !” he asked, switching off with a stick 
some dandelions which showed their golden heads 
among the pine-matting at his feet. 

44 Yes,” Lenox continued, 44 1 had brought Dainty 
up to the trough where Berry Road forks when the 
woman who lives in that little yellow box of a house 
came to the door and spoke to me. She talked to 
me for the next ten minutes, with the tears in her 
eyes, about you.” 

44 She had better, by a long odds, hold her tongue ! ” 
growled Ben. 

44 It is like you, Ben Mavis, to say that. But the 
woman’s gratitude was very touching. She says you 
have saved her boy to her in more ways than one.” 


IN THE PINE WOODS. 


129 


This time Ben did not reply. He looked about for 
some more dandelions in the soft brown matting. 

“ The woman says,” continued Lenox, 44 that her 
son has not touched a drop of anything stronger than 
water since that day. Oh, Ben, it was a noble deed 
— it was grand, heroic !” 

This time the young man flushed to the roots of 
his hair. 44 Girls always do pile on the adjectives so !” 
he exclaimed. 

44 They don’t always have as good reason for 
doing it though,” replied Lenox. 44 And you never 
told, even your mother !” 

44 What was the use of giving her a scare when the 
danger was all over ?” 

44 But you ought to think of her before you risk 
your life again to save another.” 

44 If I had stopped to think the fellow would have 
been in eternity ! My mother’s son had better show 
his pluck, if it cost him his life, than go about a cow- 
ard in a whole skin !” 

All the girl — all the dawning woman in Lenox, 
felt the manly ring of this speech. But before she 
could answer, young Mavis went on, 44 1 suppose you 
may as well have the story from me, now it will be 
in everybody’s mouth. I had got around the street 
corner with my buggy when I heard the sound of 
cracking timbers. I knew that the scaffolding of the 
new block that was going up on the right was. giving 
way. I caught sight of the fellow lying there. I 
knew an instant later he would be a mass of jelly. It 
was all done in a flash. I was out of the buggy, had 
the fellow in my arms, and had cleared the danger, 


130 


LENOX DALE. 


when the crash came. Don’t look like that, Lenox ! 
It was a risk, I know ; but I saved the fellow’s life, 
and got off without a scratch.” 

“ The woman said not one man in a thousand 
would have had the courage to do it,” said Lenox. 

“ I can’t answer for other men,” replied Ben. “ I 
only hope the fellow will prove worth saving. The 
crash woke him ; the scare sobered him. I carried 
him home and talked to him on the way like a 
grandfather.” 

“ I am glad that your mother has not heard a syl- 
lable, of it,” added Lenox. 

“ You won’t be glad long,” answered Ben, grimly. 
“ She will be sure to have a highly colored version 
from some busybody. That’s the worst of it. Let 
us talk of something else.” 

“ About my Virgil, for instance,” replied Lenox. 
“ Do you know I have not translated a line of our 
last lesson ?” 

“ Virgil to the dogs !” cried Ben. 

Lenox’s laugh rang out gaily. “We began with 
such good intentions, Ben,” she said. “ It was to be 
an hour’s Latin every evening, you remember, inex- 
orable as some old law of the Medes and Persians. 
Your mother predicted it would all end in just this 
fashion.” 

Ben laughed, and arched his brows. “It is not the 
first time her predictions have proved true,” he said. 

While the youth and the maiden were having their 
talk in the old bridle-path, the late summer-afternoon 
light glimmered about Lenox’s girlish figure, and 
glanced on Dainty’s gray mane, and made that a silver 


IN THE PINE WOODS. 


131 


cloud, and shone on Ben’s frank young face and 
brown locks. The whole, with the green gloom 
of the pine woods for a background, had a wonder- 
fully picturesque effect. A third person, listening 
to the talk of the two, might have been a little puz- 
zled to decide the relationship they bore to each 
other. Their manner, with all its perfect frankness, 
was not precisely that of brother and sister. Still 
less was it like that of lovers. A thought of that 
sort, it was evident, had never crossed the soul of 
youth or maiden. But their intercourse had, from 
the beginning, taken a tone of the frankest, most in- 
timate companionship. In their love of out-door life, 
of animals, of sports, the young people had a large 
world of tastes and sympathies in common. They 
were at a time of life, too, when these tastes and 
sympathies would be most active. But under all this 
lay, with Lenox, a passion of gratitude ; while Ben, in 
turn, always felt toward her that sense of tender, pro- 
tecting care, which first awoke in his soul on the 
night when he carried the small, drooping figure over 
the Mavis threshold. 

Lenox spoke up suddenly : “ I have set my heart 
on having a game of archery after supper. I must 
try the new bow you brought me yesterday. I shall 
want to shoot at a target everyday, for the next week 
at least.” 

“ For the next week !” repeated Ben. “ You little 
suspect where we shall be at the end of that time ! 
We are going somewhere, Lenox — you and mother 
and I. We are to start within three days. It was all 
settled while you were up in the woods this afternoon. 


132 


LENOX DARE. 


I have written to engage rooms. Now, Lenox, where 
is it we are going ?” 

As he propounded this riddle Ben folded his arms 
and looked very solemn, only there was a glint of 
mischief in his eyes. 

“Your mother going too !” exclaimed Lenox. 
And it is so difficult to pursuade her to leave home. 
Where can it be ?” 

“But that is precisely what you are to tell me.” 

“ And it is to be good news ; I can tell that by 
your looks.” 

“ Oh, splendid — glorious — the whole gamut of a 
girl’s adjectives !” 

Lenox suddenly brought her gauntleted palms to- 
gether. “ We are going to Watkins’s Glen !” she 
cried, triumphantly. 

The Mavis farm was less than twenty miles from 
this famous ravine. Lenox had visited it with her 
friends the summer before. She had watched the 
sunlight glancing on the gray cliffs and shimmering 
cascades. She had listened to the voice of the tum- 
bling waters as they broke, with joyful shout, the sol- 
emn gloom of the vast ravine. She had climbed the 
lofty staircases, and lingered on the fairy bridges that 
span the chasm. As she lost herself in one vista and 
another of beauty and grandeur she half believed 
she had passed into some new world of mystery and 
enchantment. 

Ben Mavis shook his head. “ It is at least ten 
times farther than Watkins’s Glen,” he said. 

She mused a moment. The plume of her little 
riding-cap waved jauntily in the breeze, the shadows 


IN THE PINE WOODS. 


133 


of the pines flickered over her young, thoughtful 
face. She turned suddenly and laid her hand on the 
young man’s shoulder. “ Tell me, Ben,” she said, 
appealingly. 

“We are going — to the sea!” 

“ To the sea!” repeated Lenox, in a half dazed, half 
awed tone. 

“Precisely, Lenox,” answered Ben; and then he 
went on to explain how it had all come about. 

His mother had, just after Lenox left the house, 
received a letter from her husband’s sister, who lived 
in a small village among the Berkshire hills. The 
letter told^a sad story of broken health. The writer 
had not, since the year her brother died, seen his 
wife or his son. She wrote now, entreating them to 
come to her in the lovely June weather. 

They had decided to go, and take Lenox with 
them ; but they had arranged to spend a week at 
Hampton Beach before going into the interior. How 
simple and matter-of-fact it all sounded as Ben re- 
lated the programme, whose consummation would 
an hour ago have appeared to Lenox as remote as 
going to the moon ! 

“ It is a grand old coast,” Ben concluded. “ I was 
there with my father when I was a boy. The beach 
at low tide is, for miles, smooth as a marble floor. 
You’ll have the ocean in all its glory close to your 
door. If anything could have made a poet of me, 
that sight would. You’ll be fascinated, too, with the 
old rocks, where you can gather shells, and sea-weed, 
and all sorts of curious things the tides have left 
there. In fine weather you can see from Boar’s Head 


134 


LENOX DARE. 


the Isles of Shoals, like huge black monsters, lifting 
themselves just above the waves.” 

“ And I am going to see, to hear it all in three 
clays !” said Lenox, still quietly ; but there was a 
vibration in her voice which satisfied Ben. 

“ Within three days !” he repeated ; and then he 
took hold of Dainty’s saddle and walked by her side 
through the forest ways. 

When they reached the big gate they saw Mrs. 
Mavis on the side piazza. 

A moment later Lenox sprang lightly from her 
horse, and bounded up to the woman. 

“ O, Mrs. Mavis,” she said, putting her arms around 
the other’s neck, “ Ben has told me, all about it !” 

This demonstration was very rare with Lenox — so 
rare that it always reminded Mrs. Mavis of the time 
the girl had caressed her that day they brought her 
out on the piazza for the first time. 

“ I thought, my dear,” she said, laughing, and 
glancing at the manly youth, “ he wouldn’t be able 
to keep the news until you got home.” 

“ And we are really going day after to-morrow, 
Mrs. Mavis ?” 

“We are really going, Lenox I” 


CHAPTER IX. 


HAMPTON BEACH. 


NE morning Lenox Dare sat alone on the highest 



w point of a ledge of low, ragged, gray rocks at 
Hampton Beach, and watched the tide come in. It 
was just a week since she and Ben Mavis had had 
their talk in the pine woods. She had been at Hamp- 
ton three days, and now she was quite alone, except 
for the slight acquaintances she had made since her 
arrival. 

Mrs. Mavis’s nice little programme had all been 
broken up the day before by a telegram announcing 
that her sister-in-law was seriously ill, and desired 
her presence immediately. 

Mother and son had set off a few hours later, 
leaving Lenox behind at the beach. It would have 
been cruel to drag the girl into a strange house, dark- 
ened by illness. She had pleaded to be left behind. 
Loneliness, she insisted, could have no terrors for her 
with that great blue ocean to keep Ler company. 

They had chosen, for greater freedom, a private 
boarding-house close by the sea. Lenox would be 
left in kindly hands for the few days of her friends’ 
absence. Ben was to return for her as soon as his 
aunt’s improved health would make the girl’s visit 
agreeable. 135 


136 


LENOX DARE. 


Lenox could hardly understand the reluctance 
with which her friends left her to herself for this 
brief interval. “ If I were a baby, instead of seven- 
teen, you could not have a more hopeless opinion of 
my incapacity !” she said, with her gayest laugh. 
“ Do you suppose anybody is going to try to run 
away with me?” 

Before the three met again something had happened 
which made that light question of Lenox seem pro- 
phetic.' 

The girl had been sitting on the rocks more than 
an hour, absorbed in the scene before her. Behind her 
the gray beach stretched for miles. Before her lay 
the blue, tumbling sea. The wind blew the girl’s 
hair about her face, as she sat there in her white 
dress and shade hat, motionless as a statue, her 
shawl of scarlet wool gathered about her shoulders, 
the bright color showing finely against the dark back- 
ground of the rocks. She made a picture there, just 
on the edge of the sea, of which she little dreamed. 
It struck a young man who had been out for an hour's 
row, and who was bringing his small boat in shore 
with the lusty strokes of a trained oarsman. Lenox 
never glanced at him. She had eyes for nothing but 
that great world of the sea, which stretched before 
her until its leaping, flashing blue was lost in that 
other still, solemn blue of the far horizon. The tide 
was coming in with its cool, salt winds, with the 
glitter of its snowy surf, with the thunder of triumph 
with which the great waves hurled themselves in 
passionate caresses upon the land. Lenox drank it 
all in. She, too, “ seemed a part ” of that infinite joy 


HAMPTON BEACH. 


137 


and life and motion. She watched the white gleam 
of the sea-birds’ wings, the pretty sail-boats as they 
darted about, the stately barks and schooners as they 
rose and vanished in the mystery and beauty of the 
distant horizon. Meanwhile the tide was steadily 
creeping up the granite knees of the rocks, draped 
with sea-weed, where Lenox was sitting. At high 
tide only a few points would stand above the water. 

“ Does she see how the tide is getting behind her? 
Has the creature a notion to drown herself?” thought 
the young oarsman, as he brought his boat on the 
sands, and sprang lightly ashore. 

At the same moment the dashing of some spray in 
Lenox’s face aroused her. She was on her feet in a 
moment. She saw at a glance that she was being 
rapidly cut off from the shore. The girl certainly 
was in no peril. The point where she stood would 
not be submerged in so calm a day ; but it would 
not be pleasant to wait, cut off from the shore, on 
that solitary headland, for the tide to go out. 

Lenox Dare once awakened to an emergency 
usually proved equal to it. She came down the 
rocks now, light and swift as bounding chamois. The 
oddness of her position, and its touch of adventure, 
strongly excited her. But she suddenly stood still, 
while a perplexed look came over her face. The 
water had wound itself in among the rocks, and rolled 
a wide stream between her and the next point to 
which she must pass on her descent. There was no 
time to be lost. Lenox had just made up her mind 
to leap the chasm when a voice at her right, and just 
below her, called out : “ Take care, Miss ! You will 


138 


LENOX DARE. 


make that leap at your peril. Allow me to assist 
you.” 

Lenox turned, and saw the speaker. He had just 
come around a sharp angle of the rocks which he 
had climbed from the opposite side. He was a 
rather tall, ruddy-skinned, yellowish-haired and whis- 
kered young fellow, about twenty-two. He was 
well, but not foppishly, dressed in a light travelling 
suit, and he had altogether a pleasant, gentlemanly 
air, as he stood there, lifting his hat to the girl while 
he spoke. 

The stranger’s address had been perfectly respect- 
ful. Any young girl in Lenox’s plight would have 
accepted his proffered service. She gave him her 
hands in the frankest, simplest fashion. “ Thank 
you,” she said, with a merry laugh. “ I little sus- 
pected the ocean was stealing such a march on me 
while I sat up there watching those grand old- 
waves !” 

As Lenox said this she sprang lightly across the 
stream. There were steep, slippery places still be- 
tween her and the sand. Lenox would have made 
nothing of them, still she could hardly decline the 
young man’s aid. 

“ You must have enjoyed the sight immensely,” he 
remarked. 

“ Nobody could help doing that,” answered Lenox, 
and she flashed up one of her vivid glances into the 
stranger’s face, 'and he said to himself: “ By Jove ! 
What magnificent eyes the creature has !” 

“ I saw you sitting on the rocks when I was out 
in my sail-boat,” he continued. “ I was half-inclined 


HAMPTON BEACH. 


139 


to think you were some ocean nymph, come up from 
the depths to sun yourself and watch the sea awhile 
before you darted back again into your native waves.” 

Again Lenox’s laugh rang out gaily. “ Did I make 
you think of that ?” she asked. “ It is curious how 
the sea brings up all sorts of lovely old myths and 
legends that one has not thought of for years. While 
I was sitting there I half-expected to see some huge 
Triton riding on the back of a green wave, or the sea- 
horses rising up with their manes glittering like the 
spray. How real the sight of the sea makes all those 
delightful old stories !” 

Again the young man looked at Lenox with 
curious, amused eyes. The sea air had stung her 
cheeks into a vivid glow. The gladness of the hour 
was in her face. 

Mrs. Mavis had often been puzzled to decide in her 
own mind whether Lenox was pretty, or even good- 
looking. Her eyes were something wonderful, but 
when it came to the rest of the face, the little woman 
was in doubt. It lacked the soft bloom of the dead 
Janet’s, the pretty pink and white of the young girls 
at Briars wild. It had been dark and thin when she 
came to them, although the lines had been growing 
softer and finer each year. Mrs. Mavis, however, 
could not perceive — what perhaps an artist might 
have done — that whatever beauty Lenox might have 
it would develop slowly, after a law of its own ; and 
that the young girl’s face must wait for its soul, for 
its womanhood. The spring has its own time — its 
perfect blossoming. So also has the summer. 

The question which had puzzled Mrs. Mavis a good 


140 


LENOX DARE. 


many times puzzled the young man in his turn. 
Amid his other conceits, he plumed himself on being 
a good judge of young girls, but he was at a loss how 
to classify the one whom he had helped over the 
rocks that morning. For they had reached the 
sands by this time. He had now only to lift his hat 
and take leave of his companion, but he felt more 
than half inclined to pursue the acquaintance begun 
so informally. 

Lenox turned toward her boarding-house, half a 
mile up the beach. She was about to say good-morn- 
ing to her companion. 

“ I am just going up to the hotel,” he said. “As 
our paths seem to lie in the same direction I will 
walk with you, if you have no objection.” 

“ Oh, certainly, I have no objection,” answered 
Lenox, with perfect transparency of speech and tone. 

The walk over the beach was very fascinating to 
the young girl. Familiarity had not yet blunted the 
fine edge of her delight and wonder at the new world 
around her. Every step of the way held some fresh 
marvel. Her outspoken pleasure, her perfect natu- 
ralness, her bright, quaint way of expressing herself, 
amused the stranger, and piqued his curiosity. 

“ This all seems to be quite new to you,” he said, 
as they walked along, in answer to some remark of 
Lenox. 

“ Tllis is m y first visit to the ocean,” she replied. 
“It seems the more wonderful to be left here all 
alone with it.” 

“ All alone ?” 

“ 0h > 1 be g your pardon !” exclaimed Lenox. “ Of 


HAMPTON BEACH. 


141 


i course you do not understand, and I believe I was 
speaking half to myself.” Then, in a few words, she 
related how her friends had been suddenly summoned 
, away, and how very odd it seemed to find herself all 
alone in the quaint old town on the edge of the sea. 

“ You must find it very lonely, I imagine ?” 

“ Lonely !” repeated Lenox, with her happy, in- 
credulous laugh. “ That is what Mrs. Mavis and 
Ben were all the time insisting on. But how could 
one be lonely in such a place !” 

This was a part of the talk as the young people 
walked slowly up the sands at Hampton Beach, in the 
summer morning. Other talk was suggested by the 
time and place ; and still Lenox, fresh and quaint, 
puzzled and attracted the stranger who walked by 
her side. 

At last the gate of the square, two-storied, white 
house where she was staying came in sight. 

Then the stranger said, in his half-careless, half- 
gallant way, a way which young ladies, as a rule, 
thought very fascinating : “ As you have allowed me 
to walk up with you, I shall take the liberty to pre- 
sent myself,” and he offered his card. 

Lenox received it cordially enough, but with a 
little glance of surprise. She read the name, written 
in a large, clear hand, with a good many flourishes, 
“ Guy Fosdick.” 

“ Now, may I be bold enough to ask your name, 
also ?” said the young man, as Lenox looked up from 
the card. 

“ My name,” said the girl, with her great eyes 
gazing quietly at him, “is Lenox Dare.” 


142 


LENOX DARE. 


“ I should expect the creature would have an odd 
name !” thought young Fosdick, but he said in his 
subtly flattering, yet wholly respectful manner : “ I 
like this introduction vastly better than a more 
formal one. As you are quite alone, and in a strange 
world, and I happen to be stopping at Boar’s Head 
for a few days, can I not be of some service to you?” 

“You are very kind, Mr. Fosdick,” answered the 
girl. “ But really I can think of nothing which — 
which you can do for me.” 

“ I am sorry to hear you say that, Miss Dare,” 
answered the young man. The girl’s indifference to 
his attempts at farther acquaintance had the last 
effect she intended, and only piqued him into making 
farther advances. 

He spoke of croquet ; he described the fascinat- 
ing sport on the beach ; he told her that a party of 
young people was coming down that very afternoon 
to have a game. He asked if Miss Dare would join 
them if he called for her. 

She thanked him in her bright, frank way, as far 
from any thought of fascinating him as though the 
accomplished young cavalier by her side had been her 
own grandfather, but she said there were so many 
other things to see and do that she found no time for 
croquet ; and though she sometimes played she had 
no special skill at the game. 

He made another trial. Would she allow him, he 
asked, the privilege of a properly introduced ac- 
quaintance, to call on her ? 

“ Certainly,” she’ answered. “ But if he gave him- 
self the trouble it was quite doubtful whether he 


HAMPTON BEAC^J 143 

would find her at home. She was out-doors most of 
the time in this enchanting weather, and this won- 
derful scenery/’ 

Guy Fosdick knew the ways of girls. Was this 
one, after all, only trying to play her role in a little 
more artful fashion than the others*? But a glance 
at Lenox’s face answered that question. There was 
nothing for him to do but lift his hat and bid her 
good- morning. Guy Fosdick went up to his hotel 
conscious that he had absolutely failed to make the 
impression he intended. It was a new experience to 
him. 

Unlike as were the two women who had the shap- 
ing of Lenox Dare’s childhood and youth, their in- 
fluence had, in one respect, been identical. There 
was a side of the world of which Lenox was as igno- 
rant as a baby. Mrs. Crane had a narrow-minded 
notion that the less a young girl knew about the 
world the better and safer it was for her. Mrs. Mavis 
had found Lenox’s simplicity so attractive that the 
woman could never make up her mind to disturb it. 
Such ignorance always has its perils. No harm, how- 
ever, was likely to overtake Lenox so long as she re- 
mained sheltered and love-guarded under the roof 
at Briars wild. 

But Mrs. Mavis very naturally did not reflect that 
Lenox’s life, like all others, was liable to sudden 
changes. Some event might happen which would 
launch the young, inexperienced girl into the great 
world, among men and women where her lack of 
knowledge might lead her into great mistakes, into 
terrible dangers. 


144 


LENOX DARE. 


Guy Fosdick, who had run up to Boar’s Head with 
some young friends for a few days boating and fish- 
ing, was a man of the world ; a very young one, it is 
true, and therein lay his best hope, for he was barely 
twenty-three. He had graduated at Harvard, with 
moderate honors, the year before. He had not }^et 
settled himself to any work in life. There was no 
need that he should be in a hurry about choosing his 
professiQn, he reasoned. A young fellow with a com- 
fortable fortune in prospect might as well have a jolly 
time and see something of the world before he went 
into harness for life. 

Young Fosdick’s father was a rich man, a Beacon 
street autocrat. Guy was the only son among half a 
dozen sisters. He had been a good deal spoiled from 
his boyhood. He had plenty of personal conceits and 
vanities, besides the family one of pluming himself on 
his old name and high position. 

In his family Guy had always been regarded as a 
prodigy. His parents, his handsome, dashing sisters 
scolded, and petted, and idolized him. His class- 
mates regarded him as a good fellow, bright and 
jolly^ while he was an immense favorite with all 
young ladies. He had the gift of bright surface talk, 
the tact and grace of manner which make the model 
carpet-knight. It was his secret conviction that no 
young woman on whom he chose to exert his fascina- 
tions would be able to resist them. He meant to be 
a gentleman ; he would have been extremely morti- 
fied had any one regarded him otherwise, yet his 
standards were no more elevated than the world in 
which he moved. His life had been thus far what he 


HAMPTON BEACH. 


145 


regarded as open and honorable, although he had of 
late “ sowed some wild oats,” and been drawn into 
some associations which he would not for worlds have 
mentioned at home. 

Had Fate, one might wonder, in some mood of 
utmost irony brought these two together in that old 
town by the sea — the man of the world, with his 
fine manners, and his drawing-room gallantries, and 
this girl, with her young enthusiasms, her ignorance 
of life, and her unquestioning faith in all that wore 
a fair and courteous guise ! 

Young Fosdick was quite right in his opinion. 
Lenox hardly gave him a thought after he was out of 
sight. His manners seemed to her very graceful, but 
her first impressions — those which are oftenest 
keenest and most trustworthy — were not altogether 
favorable. She did not reason aboiit it, but she felt, 
rather than perceived, something lacking under all 
the polish and gallantry. Those were very elegant 
manners, no doubt, she thought. But, after all, she 
liked Ben Mavis’s frank, simple ways a good deal 
better. 

The next day, at low tide, Lenox went down all 
alone on the beach to hunt for shells and sea-weed, and 
other treasures of the deep, which the waves in their 
swift retreat had forgotten to take with them. The 
light, lithe figure moving about amid the rocks and 
stones could be seen at a long distance on that wide, 
open coast ; but Lenox no more dreamed of any one’s 
watching her than the waves far out on the beach, 
singing to each other their secret of eternal joy, 
thought who might be listening. 

10 


146 


LENOX DARE. 


A step near at hand made her look up suddenly 
from under the deep rim of her sun-hat. There 
stood Guy Fosdick only a few feet from her. He 
lifted his cap, and approached at once. “ This is a 
most lucky accident for me, Miss Dare,” he said, very 
gallantly. “ How long have you been here ?” and 
he gave her his hand. 

There was nothing for Lenox to do but give hers 
in turn. It was a little, ungloved hand, the soft 
fingers wet and rather soiled by contact with sand 
and rock. The truth was, Guy Fosdick’s appearance 
on the scene was anything but agreeable to her. 
Lenox had her moods of liking to be alone. Rocks 
and sands and distant sea whose murmurs stole softly 
to the shore were all-sufficing now. Elegant manners 
and gallant speeches were, no doubt, very fine things, 
but they seemed to jar on that time and place. 

Lenox had not been trained to disguise her emo- 
tions. Young Fosdick detected her real feeling in 
her first half-dismayed glance. ‘ 4 She’s anything but 
glad to see me !” he said to himself. 

“ I have no idea how long I have been here,” re- 
plied the girl gravely, as she stood before him, with 
her basket in one hand. “ It must be a good while, 
I think. I came down to hunt for — all kinds of sea 
things.” 

“ And I wandered down here for no reason in the 
world that I could give to myself. How could I have 
any suspicion that the sea-nymph of the rocks was 
flitting round the sands at low tide ?” 

“I suppose people who come to the beach can 
hardly help occasionally stumbling upon each other,” 


HAMPTON BEACH. 


147 


answered Lenox, with the quaint, old-fashioned air 
that came of her lonely childhood. 

Young Fosdick had a keen sense of humor. “ That 
tone and look would not have misbecome my vener- 
able grandmother,” he said to himself. “ But what 
a hopeless simpleton it must be ! She actually be- 
lieves our meeting here is a pure accident !” 

He could not imagine another girl existed who 
would not have perceived at once that he had con- 
trived to bring about this interview. But he kept up 
his role admirably. The fact that Lenox wished him 
away made him only more bent on remaining. He 
did his best to be useful and agreeable. It was not 
strange that he succeeded. He joined in Lenox’s 
search, and soon became interested himself in the 
hunt for shells and sea-plants. He could give Lenox 
here precisely the sort of help she needed. In this 
eager search, in this wide, out-door life, the acquaint- 
ance grew naturally and easily. Young Fosdick had 
no idea of spending an hour in a young lady’s society 
without attempting to carry on a flirtation ; but signif- 
icant looks and subtle flatteries glanced away from 
Lenox like arrows from charmed armor. She either 
could not or would not understand, he thought. But 
the more he talked with her the more interested he 
grew. It was not easy work to clamber around the 
wet boulders and among the tangled, slippery weed, 
and Lenox, light and agile as she was, met with a 
good many small mishaps, and the merriment that fol- 
lowed only gave new zest to the toil and the pleas- 
ure, and brought the two into closer acquaintance. 

In a little while Lenox’s first shyness with strangers 


148 


LENOX DARE. 


wore off, and she was as much at her ease with young 
Fosdick as she would have been with Ben Mavis or 
one of her schoolmates. She even, without dream- 
ing of it, put Guy Fosdick on his mettle. If she 
surprised and amused him one moment by her 
simplicity, she startled him the next by her swift in- 
telligence, by a knowledge of books, which, at her 
age, seemed incredible. 

When, late in the afternoon, the tide turned, 
Lenox’s basket was filled with all sorts of rare speci- 
mens of moss and shells, beach-weed and fungi, which 
one finds at low tide among the rocks and sands. 
By this time the }T>ung people were on a most friendly 
footing. Slightly wearied by their exercise they 
climbed up the rocks and sat down in a little arbor 
built just above the highest tide-mark. 

Lenox’s eyes fairly gloated over the basket of 
treasures which young Fosdick set down at her feet. 
“You have been very kind ; I owe the best part of 
them to you,” she said simply and gratefully. 

“You are not sorry, then, Miss Dare, that we met 
accidentally this afternoon ?” inquired Guy ; and then 
he thought what a perfectly arranged accident it 
was, when he had been watching her at least half an 
hour from the bluffs at Boar’s Head ! 

“ Sorry !” repeated Lenox. Then she added in her 
frank, cordial fashion, “ I am heartily glad you came 
when you did, Mr. Fosdick.” 

“ But you were not that at first. I saw with a 
glance that I was de trop, Miss Dare.” 

He said this half for the purpose of testing her. 
He was curious to see how far this girl’s limpid truth- 


HAMPTON BEACH. 


149 


fulness would carry her. Would she have the cour- 
age to own to his face that she had been sorry to see 
him? 

The red which the salt breeze had stung in Lenox’s 
cheeks deepened a shade. 

“ I beg you will excuse me, Mr. Fosdick,” she said. 
“ I did not mean to be rude.” 

“ You were not in the least, Miss Dare. It was 
not your fault, certainly, if you were not glad to see 
me.” 

“ But I was,” answered Lenox, looking at him with 
bright, unflinching eyes, “ in a little while.” 

“ That bit of feminine frankness was heroic !” 
thought the young man. “ What a puzzling little 
specimen it is — refreshing, too, after' a fellow has 
been pretty thoroughly bored with the other sort !” 

They walked home in the sunset ; they heard the 
song of the returning tide ; they watched the clouds 
in the west, the bars of crimson, the soft lilacs with 
primrose edges. 

“ Oh, I wish I had Dainty here !” suddenly cried 
Lenox, turning to her companion with eyes that ra- 
diated light. “ How we would scamper over those 
sands and down into that surf !” 

“ Who is Dainty?” asked the young man, with a 
good deal of interest. 

“ Oh, I forgot ! Of course you do not know !” she 
exclaimed, and then she went on to describe, as no- 
body else could, the handsome little thoroughbred, 
fleet as the wind, yet docile to her voice and hand 
as a pet fawn. 

“No doubt you and Dainty would enjoy the scene 
vastly ; but what would become of me ?” 


150 


LENOX DARE. 


Guy contrived to get some very subtle meanings 
into his glance and tone as he asked this question. 

“ But the sea and the shore would still be left 
you !” answered Lenox, in a tone whose gay coolness 
the most finished coquette could not have rivaled. 

“ She would actually prefer her horse this moment 
to my society !” thought Guy Fosdick, and afterward 
he redoubled his efforts to be agreeable. 

When the two parted at the gate he had won a 
promise from Lenox that she would allow him to call 
the next morning and accompany her in her walk on 
the beach. 

That very night sad tidings came from the Berk- 
shire Hills. Ben Mavis’s aunt had grown worse, and 
neither he nor his mother could leave the invalid for 
the present. 

The Fates seem to conspire to throw Lenox into 
young Fosdick’s society at this juncture. A breezy, 
merry walk on the beach and among the rocks con- 
sumed the forenoon. Lenox’s companion was familiar 
with the coast, and prided himself on being a good 
oarsman. He waxed eloquent over the fascinations 
of rocking out on the great waves in a sail -boat. 
Lenox was eager to enjoy the novel sensation for her- 
self, and when Guy proposed to take her out for a 
little sail the next day, she at once accepted his offer. 

For the first time Lenox Dare found herself gliding 
over blue, tumbling waves, in a fairy craft. The de- 
licious motion, the mystery of the glancing, heaving 
world below fairly intoxicated her. She sat still 
most of the time, watching the waves or gazing like 
one lost in a dream on young Fosdick, who man- 


HAMPTON BEACH. 


151 


aged the small craft admirably. They were out for 
a couple of hours. As the young man brought his 
boat in shore, Lenox, her cheeks stung by the sea-air 
into the reddest bloom, looked at him with happy, 
grateful eyes, and said she should never forget that he 
had given her her first sail on the sea. 

In days that followed, the young people saw more 
and more of each other. They had walks on the 
shingle and rambles in the woods. In the absence of 
her friends, Guy took on himself, naturally and grace- 
fully, the office of Lenox’s escort around the coast. 
He was familiar with it for miles, and in his com- 
pany she visited many an interesting and picturesque 
point to which she could never have gone by herself. 

Guy repeated wonderful old legends and ballads 
which haunt the shores. He related some of the 
household traditions which the farmers and fisher- 
men talk over in winter nights when the wild storms 
thunder around Hampton Beach. In a thousand 
ways he made that waiting by the sea something de- 
lightful and vivid to Lenox Dare — something which 
it could never have been without him. 

The charm of her fresh, guileless nature gained a 
stronger hold upon him every day. He had never 
been so simple and manly in his life. He forgot, 
sometimes for hours together, in this girl’s bright, 
frank companionship, in her quaintness, her playful- 
ness, her cleverness, the flirtations and the flatteries 
that had thus far been Guy Fosdick’s principal role 
with young women. 

And Lenox Dare, in a very passion of delight with 
the new world around her, talked and jested, was 


152 


LENOX DARE. 


grave or gay with this elegant young man of the 
world, with no more thought of feminine arts and 
airs — no more notion of his falling in love with her 
than with the birds that were singing out the June in 
the green Hampton woods. 

And Guy Fosdick knew that perfectly ; and some- 
times it nettled him. 


CHAPTER X. 


GUY FOSDICK AND HIS FRIEND. 

UY FOSDICK, in his growing intimacy with 



u Lenox Dare, could not fail to learn something 
of her history. Her home at Briarswild — the life 
she led there — the people most closely associated 
with it — came up frequently in her talk. Guy 
showed an interest — this time Rot assumed — in all 
that concerned her. There was something about these 
people who had adopted the orphan grand-niece of 
old Colonel Marvell, and of whom she was so fond, 
that puzzled him. They seemed as much out of the 
line of his ordinary experiences as Lenox herself. 
They lived on a farm, in a little out-of-the-way coun- 
try town. They could be nothing more than simple, 
good-natured folk, the fastidious youth frequently 
told himself ; but in his own mind he was not more 
than half satisfied with the social status which he 
rather contemptuously awarded the Mavis household. 
There was one person, too, about whom he felt a cu- 
riosity which he would have scorned to own, even 
to himself. Ben Mavis’s name name came up as fre- 
quently arid naturally in Lenox’s talk as his mother’s 
did. Ben indeed was so much a part of her home- 
life that it was impossible to know her long without 


153 


154 


LENOX DARE. 


hearing about him. When he first caught the name, 
Guy manifested a curiosity which his companion was 
not slow to gratify. 

“ Who is Ben Mavis ?” she said, repeating Guy’s 
inquiry. “ He is the noblest, kindest-hearted fellow 
in the whole world, Mr. Fosdick. How I wish you 
could know him !” 

“ He must be a lucky fellow — whoever he is — 
to stand so high in your good graces, Miss Dare,” 
answered the young man. “ I might not, however, 
be able to share yo ur enthusiasm for him.” 

u Oh, you couldn’t help doing so when you came 
to know him,” exclaimed Lenox decidedly; and she 
went on to describe Ben in a way that, had he over- 
heard her, would have made that manly youth blush 
like a girl. She related all sorts of stories of their 
life together under the happy home-roof, and in the 
wide out-doors of Briarswild. 

Guy was not long in making up his mind that Ben 
Mavis was in love with Lenox Dare. That convic- 
tion did not enhance his friendly feeling toward the 
young man. 

As for Lenox, she puzzled Guy here as she did in 
most things. He could not make up his mind as* to 
the nature of her regard for young Mavis. “ Could 
it be so frank, so outspoken, if it were really that of 
a young girl for her lover ?” Guy asked himself this 
question a good many times every day, and was never 
able to answer it satisfactorily to his own mind. His 
interest in her friend pleased Lenox, who little sus- 
pected what was at the bottom of it. She was 
always ready to talk about Ben, and young Fosdick 


GUY FOSDIGK AND HIS FRIEND. 


155 


was always ready to listen, though he sometimes felt 
a strong inclination to break out and curse the fellow. 
Could it be that this elegant youth, this Harvard 
graduate, this squire of drawing-rooms was jealous of 
“ Corydon, that moon-struck swain, that backwoods 
bumpkin !” as he contemptuously styled Ben Mavis 
in his thoughts. 

“ I see the young fellow is a sort of hero in your 
eyes. If I took him at your word, Miss Dare, I 
should have to imagine some combination of Apollo 
and Nestor.” 

There was the faintest touch of irony in Guy’s 
light tones as he made this speech. Lenox only half 
discerned that, but it was enough to put her on her 
mettle. She turned to him now — the girlish head 
bridling, the dark eyes flashing. 

“ When you speak of Ben Mavis to me, Mr. Fos- 
dick,” she said, “ will you please to do it in — in a 
little different tone ?” 

Guy hastened to make his peace. “ I beg your 
pardon, Miss Dare,” he said. “ I did not suppose my 
foolish jest could annoy you. You can forgive me, I 
am sure, for being slightly envious of this lucky young 
friend of yours.” 

“ Envious !” repeated Lenox, with a puzzled look. 

“ Of course I am !” leplied Guy, with a glance and 
tone that would have raised many a young girl to a 
seventh heaven. “ Your liking for this precious fel- 
low makes you put all the rest of his sex so im- 
mensely into the background.” 

The look and tone were lost on Lenox. But she 
answered the words gravely, half-apologetically. 


156 


LENOX DARE. 


“ But you see, Mr. Fosdick, nobody could be to 
me what Ben Mavis is. If he were my brother, I 
could not love him better.” 

“ But the fact remains that he is not your brother, 
Miss Dare ; not your remotest connection, even, and 
yet you look at me coolly and insist that you love 
him !” 

“ Better than anybody in the world,” answered 
Lenox, fervently, “ unless, it may be, his mother!” 

“ May you always add that last clause, Miss Dare ! 
I am not sure, however, that young Mavis would sub- 
scribe to my wish.” 

Lenox looked puzzled for a moment, then, as his 
meaning broke on her, she burst into the gayest 
laugh. “Did young Fosdick really suppose Ben 
Mavis was in love with her ? Could anything more 
absurd be imagined ?” 

Greatly as the idea amused her, yet she felt as 
though it were a sort of reflection on Ben, and for his 
sake, half resented it. 

“ Oh, Mr. Fosdick, you were never more mistaken 
in your life. Ben Mavis is entirely above any ab- 
surdity of that sort. He is only the truest friend, 
the dearest brother a girl could ever have !” 

Nobody could doubt the absolute sincerity of this 
remark. Its total lack of vanity struck Guy dumb 
for a moment. Here was a young girl who actually 
resented the idea of a lover ! He had not supposed 
such a phenomenon possible. Tins talk occurred as 
the two sat on the shingle the very day that Guy 
Fosdick took Lenox out on her first sail. 

It was the keynote to many a subsequent talk. 


GUY FOSDICK AND HIS FRIEND. 


157 


Guy had his own motives for frequently alluding to 
Ben Mavis ; and Lenox was always sufficiently ready 
to respond to this subject. Young Fosdick was per- 
fectly aware that she would any moment have gladly 
relinquished his society for that of the absent youth. 
The thought was not flattering to his self-love. 

“ Am I actually fallen so low as to dread a rival in 
that knight of the ploughshare !” he asked himself 
half seriously, half comically, remembering his fasci- 
nations for most of Lenox’s sex. Yet whenever he 
hinted of the existence of any sentimental feeling be- 
tween the two Lenox always treated the matter with 
a half-incredulous, half-amused scorn, which he saw 
was not assumed to conceal any deeper emotion. But 
her indifference to certain looks and tones and 
speeches of his own was not less transparent. 

Lenox Dare, however, little as she suspected it, 
was at this time on perilous ground. Her nature 
was, as we have seen, one that ripened slowly out of the 
innocence and unconsciousness of childhood ; but as 
she said of herself, she was “ deep in seventeen,” and 
she was thrown daily into the society of a man of the 
world who was doing his best to fascinate her. No- 
body who saw her bright, cordial greeting of the young 
man could doubt that his companionship was becom- 
ing, day by day, more agreeable to her. What girl 
could long withstand those graceful attentions, those 
subtle flatteries ! The romance of young maidenhood 
might any moment be awakened in the soul of Lenox 
Dare. She would never flirt with Guy Fosdick, as 
plenty of young girls were in the habit of doing, but 
there was nothing to hinder her falling in love with 
him. 


158 


LENOX DARE. 


At the end of three weeks, during which they had 
spent a large share of every day in each other’s so- 
ciety, Guy Fosdick invited Lenox to drive with him 
to Rye Beach. She accepted the invitation with a 
pleasure sincere and outspoken as a child’s ; but her 
heart and fancy were still as untouched by the ele- 
gant stranger as they were that morning when she 
first met him on the rocks. 

It was early in the forenoon when Guy’s light 
buggy drew up at the gate of the square white house. 
Lenox must have caught sight of him from the win- 
dow, for she was at the gate by the time he had 
alighted. 

44 1 was too impatient to keep you waiting a mo- 
ment, Mr. Fosdick,” she said, and he thought she had 
never looked quite so tantalizingly picturesque as she 
did at that moment. She wore, for the first time, the 
new suit which Mrs. Mavis had finished for her the 
day before she left home. The light and dark grays 
of the costume made a pretty contrast, and were sur- 
mounted by a little gray hat, with a cluster of small 
foam-like plumes tipped with gold. 

And in all the world there was no gladder heart 
that morning than the young girl’s who sat by Guy 
Fosdick’s side, and rolled away from the voices of the 
sea into the green old highways. 

And the gladness was in her shining eyes, in her 
glancing smile, in her sparkling talk. It made her a 
bright electric presence that morning. It half-turned 
the head — it was a pretty cool one, too, considering 
his years — of her companion. 

Ignorant as Lenox Dare was of men and of the 


GUY FOSDICK AND HIS FRIEND. 


159 


world, she was no simpleton. She was quite aware 
that young Fosdick pressed her hands at meeting and 
parting ; that he bestowed on her glances intended 
to convey mysterious and unutterable meanings, and ac- 
companied the glances with tender, significant tones. 
She had settled in her own mind, however, that these 
things meant only ordinary courtesies ; they were 
probably the habits of the society in which he moved. 
This theory had enabled Lenox to meet all the young 
man’s advances with a cool unconsciousness which 
protected her better than the subtlest arts of the 
most finished coquette. 

I suppose no man can be brought within the power- 
ful attraction of a pure and guileless nature without 
being himself elevated by that contact. The best 
side of Guy Fosdick had certainly come to the surface 
in his acquaintance with Lenox Dare. In her presence 
he often forgot to be anything but. simple and honest 
and manly. She drew him — at least while he was 
with her — to higher levels of thought and feeling. 
But this effect could hardly be more than a transient 
one. When counteracting influences were once more 
at work the traditions and standards of a lifetime 
would regain their ascendency. 

“ What a lovely old road this is !” exclaimed Lenox, 
drawing a deep breath of delight, and gazing about 
her with eyes that lost nothing — not even the soft 
trembling of shadows thrown by mighty oaks and 
graceful elms, not even the flashing of the brown 
squirrels along the old stone walls. 

“ I thought you would enjoy it, Miss Dare,” an- 
swered Guy, “ but I chose the road for another reason 
than its picturesqueness.” 


160 


LENOX DARE. 


“What was that, Mr. Fosdick?” she asked, curi- 
ously. 

“ It is an ancient turnpike full of historic associa- 
tions and legends. It is the very road over which 
Lafayette traveled when he went from Boston to 
Portsmouth on his last visit to America.” 

He watched Lenox as he said this. He saw her 
gaze go out with a new interest and delight over the 
wide summer landscape. The quiet old highway 
that every little while lost itself among the eool v 
dusky shadows of , the woods, the ancient farm-houses 
asleep among old orchards and blossoming wheat- 
fields were touched suddenly with a new poetic 
charm and association to the girl. The road that led 
to Rye Beach, the old Portsmouth turnpike, was hal- 
lowed ground to her now. Her imagination could 
invest it with romance, and people it with historic 
images. 

She turned to Guy Fosdick. She smiled gratefully 
on him. “ What a delightful surprise you have 
given me,” she said. “ I hardly know how to thank 
you for it.” 

When she said that, young Fosdick brought his 
face so near to hers that her young, fragrant breath 
mingled with his own. 

“ If you will only say you have some regard — some 
liking for me, Miss Dare, I shall be thanked a thou- 
sand times,” he answered, and his voice was low and 
tender, and for that moment he was more in earnest 
than he had ever been in his life, saying this sort of 
thing. 

“ But I do like you extremely,” said Lenox, looking 


GUY FOSDICK AND HIS FRIEND. 


161 


at him with calm, rather surprised eyes. “ I thought 
you must know that.” 

“ If I did, such a sort of liking would not precisely 
satisfy me,” he answered. 

“ What sort of liking do you mean, Mr. Fosdick ?” 
asked Lenox. Her arrow had hit the mark this time, 
but a glance at her calm eyes, at her cheeks that had 
not deepened a tint, showed him how unconsciously 
it had been aimed. 

Guy Fosdick had, in his relations with women, his 
own code of honor. Elastic as that was, it would not 
permit him to offer himself to a woman whom he had 
no intention of marrying. 

“ I should be satisfied to hear you say you liked 
me a little better than anybody else in the world,” 
he answered ; and then he thought to himself, “ A 
fellow might find that speech unpleasantly near a 
bona fide proposal, if she were disposed to take ad- 
vantage of it.” 

“ But that could not be true,” answered Lenox, 
gravely, “ because of Mrs. Mavis and Ben.” 

“ Oh, hang Ben Mavis t” 

When he said that, Lenox’s laugh rang out mer- 
rily. Guy’s simulated jealousy, as she had come to 
regard it, of young Mavis, always struck her as im- 
mensely comical. How its absurdity w.ould amuse 
Ben, she thought. 

Guy shook his head with a solemn gravity over the 
girl’s gay laugh. 

“ I suppose I must make up my mind to come after 
that redoubtable youth and his mother; but it is 
rather hard, Miss Dare, on a fellow who cannot un- 
derstand your fatuity over those people.” 


162 


LENOX DARE. 


“ But you will not call it fatuity when you come 
to see them, Mr. Fosdick,” answered Lenox, very 
decidedly, “as I hope you will some day at Briars- 
wild.” 

“ Thank you. If I ever come to Briarswild, and 
I feel very much tempted now to vow that I shall, it 
will be to see somebody beside Ben Mavis or his 
mother.” 

Of course his meaning was unmistakable. Lenox 
was pleased — flattered more or less ; still this speech, 
like many another of its kind, was doomed to fall 
wide of the mark. 

In a few moments her gaze had gone out again into 
the summer world around her. She sat very still 
now ; there was the softest stirring of color in her 
cheeks, the dream of a smile about her lips. Young 
Fosdick marked the delicate line of the profile in the 
shade of the gray hat. 

What was she thinking about ? he wondered. 
Were those last words of his, with the tone to which 
he had keyed them, echoing in her memory ? If he 
could only get a glimpse of the eyes that were shin- 
ing under those long brown lashes ! 

He drove on for awhile in silence through the pic- 
turesque windings of the old road, through the hot 
sunshine that blazed between the fields, through the 
shadows that hung dim and cool among the woods. 
The air was alive with all the soft, dreamy sounds of 
midsummer, with faint winds, with the rustling of 
leaves, with the humming of insects in the tall grass. 
Lenox heard these no longer — no longer saw the 
brown squirrels darting along the old stone walls. 


GUY FOSDICK AND HIS FKIEND. 


163 


At last Guy broke the silence. He leaned forward 
so that once more the maiden’s sweet breath floated 
about him. 

u Your thoughts, Miss Dare,” he said, “seem such 
happy ones, that I wish I might share in them !” 

She turned on him eyes that made him think of a 
summer sunrise. 

“ You have, Mr. Fosdick,” she said, most cordially. 
“ At least, I owe the thoughts to your kindness.” 

“ My dear Miss Dare I am doubtless very stupid, 
but I cannot read your riddle.” 

“ It was not what you said about the old road,” an- 
swered Lenox, “ that set me to thinking of Lafayette. 
He was always one of my heroes. I was trying to 
imagine what he must have felt, what memories must 
have crowded upon him as he drove over this very 
ground !” 

“ And did you succeed !” inquired Guy, with a 
gravity that was a little suspicious. 

“ Partly. I fancied him recalling that old, gay, 
splendid life at the French court, and all which he 
left behind him when, hardly more than a boy, he 
crossed the seas to join in our own long fight for 
freedom. How the hardships and miseries of that 
time must have come back to him ! He must have 
remembered, too, that dull, good-hearted Louis, and 
poor Marie Antoinette, and the grand, terrible days 
when they looked to him to save their crown and 
throne. He must have thought how it all ended for 
him in the bitter flight, in the shameful capture on 
the frontier, in the dreary Austrian dungeons. What 
a life that man had ! What sufferings and what glo- 


164 


LENOX DARE. 


ries ! I can just fancy him going over it all as he sat 
looking out on the pleasant road, on some of these 
very old farm-houses. For it was not so very long 
ago — at least not quite half a century. My uncle, 
Colonel Marvell, met Lafayette in Paris, and dined 
with him several times while he was in America. He 
used to tell me about it when I sat on his knee be- 
fore the big fireplace in his own room, while the great 
brass andirons shone in the blaze, and the odd little 
figures in the blue Dutch tiles around the chimney 
would dance in the firelight. It seems as though 
that all happened yesterday.” 

Guy Fosdick had hoped for a very different sort of 
answer when he attempted to penetrate Lenox’s 
thoughts. The ludicrous side of the whole thing 
struck him now. 

44 It was bad enough,” he told himself, “ to fear a rival 
in Corydon, moon-faced and rustic-mannered ; but 
when it came to an octogenarian — one too, who had 
been in his grave nearly half a century — ” He did 
not finish the thought ; he had a keen sense of the 
ludicrous ; he burst into a hearty laugh. 

He checked himself in a moment, and asked, earn- 
estly : “ Miss Dare, may I tell you precisely what I 
think of you ?” 

44 1 shall be very glad to know,” answered Lenox, 
partly amused and partly curious. 

44 You are the quaintest, brightest, most artless, 
most inexplicable, most tantalizing specimen of fem- 
inine humanity that ever bewitched a fellow’s 
brain !” 

The merriest laughters wavered in the air about 


GUY FOSDICK AND HIS FRIEND. 


165 


him. “ Do I seem to you all those high-flown super- 
latives, Mr. Fosdick?” cried Lenox, with a little toss 
of her head that was more coquettish than anything 
he had yet seen in her. 

This was a specimen of the talk of the young peo- 
ple as they drove over from Hampton to Rye Beach 
that morning. There was a great deal that was novel 
and full of interest to Lenox in the great summer- 
hotels, in the picturesque cottages, and in all the 
summer-life along the shore. Even Guy, to whom it 
had grown commonplace through long familiarity, 
saw the whole scene now with fresh eyes. They 
made a wide detour on their return, late in the after- 
noon. 

Meanwhile, young Fosdick had been entertaining 
his companion with a description of Cambridge, and 
some gossipy sketches of the undergraduate life at 
Harvard — a life doubly interesting to Lenox, be- 
cause of her uncle and her father, both of whom, she 
knew, had graduated there. 

“ We were to visit Cambridge this summer,” she 
said. “ That was a part of our programme before 
we left home ; but this long illness of Ben’s aunt 
will, I fear, disarrange all our plans. I shall be 
greatly disappointed if we miss Cambridge; though, 
of course, it can’t be helped.” 

An idea suddenly struck Guy. “ Why should you 
miss it, Miss Dare ?” he exclaimed. 

Then he proposed to escort her to the old town ; 
he waxed eloquent over all its objects of interest, its 
ancient halls, its library, its museum, its beautiful, 
quiet old streets, its lovely walks, its embowering 


166 


LENOX DARE. 


elms. He begged that he might be allowed to intro- 
duce her to “ the groves of his Academe.” He was 
quite sure that he, familiar with every inch of the 
ground, could make her visit vastly more interesting 
than one who was totally unfamiliar with the place. 
The car-ride to Boston required but two hours. 
Would not Miss Dare give him the pleasure of being 
her escort? 

As he asked that question, Lenox drew a long 
breath. A little shadow of indecision wavered over 
her face. Had she known more of the world she 
would certainly have questioned the propriety of 
taking this journey with a stranger. But she could 
hardly regard Guy Fosdiek in that light, after these 
weeks of intimate acquaintance. The pictures he 
had drawn had inspired her with an ardent desire to 
see her father’s Alma Mater. She saw, too, that in 
this visit young Fosdiek would have immense advan- 
tages over Ben Mavis, who was a total stranger to 
the ground. She did wish Mrs. Mavis were at hand 
at this juncture ; but she felt sure that indulgent 
matron would make but one reply. Indeed, she fan- 
cied that both Ben and his mother would regret her 
failing to accept the piece of good fortune that had 
come in her way. 

So. Lenox’s girlish brain reasoned — not wisely, but 
naturally enough under the circumstances. 

As for Guy Fosdiek, he had, at this time,. no motive 
to conceal. A visit to Harvard in Lenox’s society 
had strong attractions for him. When he saw she 
hesitated, he exerted himself to overcome her scru- 
ples, and by the time they reached Hampton he had 


GUY FOSDICK AND HIS FRIEND. 


167 


succeeded. Lenox had agreed to visit Cambridge 
with him in the course of two or three days. 

The afternoon train from Boston had just dropped 
its passengers at the station as they drove up. Sud- 
denly Guy Fosdick exclaimed, in a tone of surprise, 
and not altogether of pleasure, “By Jove! there’s 
Kendall !” 

Lenox’s eyes followed his glance. She saw a rather 
heavily-built, dark-skinned, black -haired and black- 
whiskered young man standing in the door of the 
little station. He wore a summer travelling-suit, and 
carried a large travelling-bag. In a moment he 
caught sight of Guy, and, lifting his hat, came eagerly 
toward the carriage. 

“ Ah, my dear fellow,” he began, in a light, jovial 
sort of tone, “ I’ve hunted you down at last. What 
on earth has kept you burrowing here so long ?” 

As he asked this question, he looked at Guy’s com- 
panion. Something gleamed a moment in his watch- 
ful black eyes, and was gone before one could read its 
meaning. 

“ I like the sea and a sail-boat better than anything 
Boston has to offer at this season,” answered Guy. 
“ Are you jolly down there, Kendall ?” 

“Not very, Fosdick. Narrow streets and steam- 
ing brick walls and mercury deep in the nineties 
don’t incline a fellow to be lively. So I’ve followed 
your example, and run up to join you for a day or 
two at Boar’s Head.” 

There was some more of this talk. It was all in 
the light, good-fellow sort of vein which Kendall 
affected with his cronies. He was quite popular with 


1 


168 LENOX DARE. 

them, especially with men younger than himself, for 
he was now past thirty. Lenox sat still, listening to 
it all with a little, amused smile. 

It might have struck a keen observer that 3 T oung 
Fosdick was in no hurry to present his friend to 
Lenox ; but Kendall kept on in his light vein, until 
Guy found the introduction could not be avoided. 

Austin Kendall lifted his hat with his best grace ; 
but when Lenox Dare laid her pure young palm in 
that man’s hand her good angel must have shuddered ! 

When, a few minutes later, the young people were 
driving into the village, Lenox turned suddenly to 
Guy, and asked gravely : “Is your friend a good 
man, Mr. Fosdick ?” 

Guy looked a little startled. “ Kendall is not a 
saint, certainly — perhaps not a good man, tried by 
your very exalted standards, Miss Dare ; but he is a 
jolly, companionable, good-hearted fellow. What 
can have put it into your head to ask that question, 
I wonder !” he ended, with a little abruptness, hardly 
like his usual courtesy. 

“ I really cannot tell,” answered Lenox, half to 
herself. 

She was not aware that the question had its origin 
in the flash of repulsion which went over her as she 
shook hands with Austin Kendall. The feeling had 
come and gone so swiftly she had hardly been con- 
scious of it. 

Before Guy could reply, they drew up at the front 
gate. 

“ I have had one of the happiest days of my lif$,” 
said Lenox, as Guy gave her his hand, and she sprang 
lightly to the ground. 


GUY FOSDICK AND HIS FRIEND. 


169 


44 I shall not be satisfied, Miss Dare, if you do not 
say more than that to me of next Thursday,” answered 
Guy, gallantly, alluding to their contemplated visit to 
Cambridge. 

On his way to Boar’s Head, Guy overtook his 
friend, and made room for him in the buggy, and the 
two had a drive in the late afternoon. They seemed 
a jovial pair of cronies. Young men were usually in 
a jolly mood in Kendall’s society. He had some fresh 
stories to tell, some 44 jokes” for Guy to laugh over. 
Then, all of a sudden he turned and laid his hand 
in friendly familiarity on the other’s shoulder. 

44 Old fellow,” he said, 44 I wouldn’t have believed 
you’d have fought shy !” 

44 What do you mean, Kendall,” asked Guy, giving 
a little jerk to his reins. He knew perfect!}" well 
what was in his companion’s thoughts ; and at that 
instant he would gladly have avoided dragging Lenox 
Dare’s name into the conversation. 

44 1 mean, my boy, I should have expected you’d 
make a clean breast of it as soon as we had got well 
by ourselves. Come, Fosdick, own up !” 

“Suppose you do that, Kendall,” replied Guy. 
44 Let a fellow hear what you think he has to own up 
to !” 

The man burst into a loud laugh. 44 Upon my 
word, Fosdick, that remark is jolly !” he said. 44 Why 
you keep as close a mouth as a girl over her first 
lover ! As though all that moonshine about the sea 
and a sail-boat keeping you in this Sleepy Hollow 
a month, could deceive me ! It w r as all cleared up in 
a flash when I caught sight of that girl in the buggy 


170 


LENOX DARE. 


with you. You’ve taken to a rather callow specimen 
of the feminine variety this time — not long out of 
pinafores, I should imagine — but a live face and glo- 
rious sort of eyes. You always had good taste in wine 
and women, you clever young rascal !” 

Austin Kendall made this speech in what he meant 
should be his lightest, jolliest tone ; but every little 
while his keen eyes, with a suspicious gleam in them, 
flashed over Guy’s face. The close of his speech, 
however, had its effect, and tickled his companion’s 
vanity. Kendall was ten years older than young 
Fosdick, and “ knew his man.” 

Guy laughed in his turn. “ I see there is no use 
trying to pull the wool over your eyes, Kendall,” he 
said. “ I throw' up the game. I plead guilty. I’ve 
been struck by the most glorious pair of eyes ; I’ve 
been bewitched by the cleverest little brain in all 
creation. They have just turned my head !” 

“ It’s a pretty cool one. I’ll wager heavily it will 
come out all right in the end !” answered Kendall, 
with a laugh that did not improve the look of the 
mouth under the dark fringe of mustache. “You’ve 
had a rather wide experience in the flirtation line, for 
a fellow of your years, Guy Fosdick !” 

“Rather,” answered Guy, with a touch of the 
other’s hard, cynical tone. “ But I tell you, my dear 
fellow, this is a little different from any of the 
others.” 

“I’ve not the slightest doubt there,” answered 
Kendall, letting his voice sink into a confidential 
tone. He affected an immense liking for young Fos* 
dick. “ It’s one thing 

‘ To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,* 


GUY FOSDICK AND HIS FKIEND. 


171 


to talk sentiment, sitting on the rocks and pacing the 
sands, with sunsets and moonrises to play the deuce 
with a fellow, and it’s quite another thing to get up 
tender glances and make soft speeches in the corner 
of an elegant drawing-room, with your lovely Dul- 
cinea sparkling and cooing beside you. I tell you, 
Fosdick, the two things are as unlike as gaslight and 
moonbeams. You can’t have the same sort of feel- 
ing — you can’t play the same role under such differ- 
ent circumstances.” 

“ By Jupiter, Kendall, I believe you are half right !” 
exclaimed Guy, considerably impressed by what he 
regarded as the other’s shrewdness. “A fellow can’t 
be sure of himself, of what he may feel and say, 
when all creation has entered into a conspiracy to 
make a fool of him ! If he wants to hold his own, he 
had better keep to the drawing-room and the Dul- 
cinea on the sofa in the corner.” 

In this way the talk about Lenox Dare opened be- 
tween Guy Fosdick and Austin Kendall. The ice 
once broken, Guy’s first reluctance to speak of the 
girl soon vanished. Before the drive was over his 
companion had learned a good deal about the ac- 
quaintance which had begun so informally, three 
weeks before, on the rocks at Hampton Beach. He 
learned a good deal more during the two days that 
followed — learned it by shrewd observation and 
questioning, by affecting the warmest interest in all 
Guy’s concerns, and by adroitly leading the conver- 
sation to the subject which he saw was, at this time, 
of supreme importance in the young man’s mind. 

“ The fellow’s in for it deeper, than I suspected!” 


172 


LENOX DARE. 


Kendall said to himself, after one of these talks, and 
he took out a cigar, and paced meditatively along the 
grassy edge of the steep cliff which lies in front of 
Boar’s Head, and keeps eternal watch over the sea. 
A little way from the shore a schooner lay at anchor, 
and two or three row-boats were just setting out for 
it, with a party of ladies and gentlemen who were 
going over to the Isles of Shoals. The great sails 
moved lazily in the light winds, the little row-boats 
made a pretty picture of motion and color as they swept 
out on the sparkling waves. The man high up on 
the hank seemed intent on watching them, but in 
reality his thoughts were elsewhere. “ I can’t be- 
lieve,” he was saying to himself, “ that my young 
gentleman, with all his grand airs and exquisite tastes, 
could be seriously smashed by a half-fledged school- 
girl, with a pair of bright eyes ! But there’s no ac- 
counting for a fellow’s fancies when it comes to a 
woman. I must get Fosdick to introduce me, and 
make up my mind on the evidence of my own eyes 
and ears !” 

These were a part of Austin Kendall’s thoughts 
that morning, as he paced the narrow, grassy path on 
the edge of the cliff, while the smoke of his cigar 
curled in the blue summer air. Other thoughts he 
had — mostly revolving about the same subject, but 
not one fine or pure — not one that was not fouled 
— that had not gathered some poisonous taint from the 
soil out of which it sprung ! 

While he was walking and smoking the last row- 
boat deposited its load on the schooner. A moment 
later the vessel weighed anchor and swept grandly 


GUY FOSDICK AND HIS FRIEND. 


173 


out to sea, the sunlight glittering on its masts, the 
soft winds filling its sails. A little group of men and 
women, apart from the others, were leaning over the 
side of the schooner. Austin Kendall lifted his hat 
and waved it gallantly to them, but, at that very mo- 
ment there flashed across him something that Guy 
had mentioned, the night before, about an appoint- 
ment he and Lenox Dare had made to visit Har- 
vard, within a day or two. 

When Kendall first proposed calling on Lenox 
Dare young Fosdick secretly winced. He knew, in 
his own soul, that he would not introduce his friend 
to his sisters. But Guy tried to satisfy his conscience, 
by telling himself h$ had no choice. He had his own 
reasons for desiring to keep on good terms with the 
older man. He assured himself that a single inter- 
view, in his presence, could do Lenox no harm ; and 
then he felt curious to see the impression she would 
make on so shrewd a fellow as Kendall. The man’s 
opinion of the girl would have a deeper influence on 
Guy than he himself suspected. 

In the interview that followed Lenox Dare cer- 
tainly did not appear to good advantage. She was 
shy and constrained, as Guy had never seen her be- 
fore. She had all the while a singular feeling of 
oppression, much as though the fresh, bright air blow- 
ing in from the sea to the cottage-parlor, where the 
three sat, brought some subtle taint with it. When 
she looked into the keen, black eyes of Austin Ken- 
dall she was uneasily conscious of something critical 
and mocking, if not malign in his gaze. Before the 
hour of his call ended her first instinct of dislike to 


174 


LENOX DARE. 


this man had deepened to one of repugnance. She 
was angry with herself for the feeling, but she could 
not overcome it. She was not at all the girl Guy had 
hitherto known, with her contagious gaiety, her won- 
derful cleverness, her thorough ingenuousness. He 
in his turn was chagrined ; he was perfectly aware 
that Kendall must be secretly wondering where the 
charm lay on which he had constantly insisted. 

Lenox drew a long breath of relief when the. call 
was over. It had been the least agreeable hour she 
had ever passed in young Fosdick’s society. His 
own feelings can be best expressed in his thought 
as he left the house. “ That call was an infernally 
unlucky move on my part !” 

He was quite right. Had Austin Kendall at that 
instant uttered his inmost conviction it would have 
been, “ What a confounded fool the fellow has made 
of himself! Nothing but a bashful little idiot with a 
pair of big eyes !” But he was quite too wise to ex- 
press himself with any such candor to Guy Fos- 
dick. 

The two young men had known each other little 
more than a year. Kendall’s social position was not 
at all on a level with young Fosdick’s; but this very 
fact made the elder man eager to court the society of 
the younger ; for Kendall was ambitious, and always 
had his own designs in cultivating an intimacy. At 
the club, where they had first met, Kendall was a 
favorite, and had a reputation for being a capital 
story-teller and joker. He was tolerably well edu- 
cated, he possessed a good deal of native shrewdness, 
he was familiar with the habits of good society, and 


GUY FOSDICK AND HIS FHIEND. 


175 


could assume, when it suited him, the outward bear- 
ing of a gentleman. He had been lucky in some 
small speculations ; he lived at a fashionable hotel ; 
he gave good dinners and was generous with his 
wines and cigars ; but the man, Austin Kendall, un- 
derneath all the mask of careless jokes and good com- 
radeship was a scoundrel. He had no faith in the 
honor of man, no trust in the purity of woman. All 
noble character, all beautiful sentiment, all lovely 
and disinterested action he regarded as humbug, su- 
perstition, or hypocrisy. 

Austin Kendall believed that all men and women 
were at bottom utterly selfish ; that all were bent on 
securing their own personal ends and ambitions — 
under different names, and by different paths cer- 
tainly ; but he held that, in reality, one human being 
was scarcely better than another ; the race being 
made up in unequal parts of the weak and the wicked ; 
while life itself was merely a hard scramble for the 
prizes and the high places, where the devil always 
got the hindmost. '* 

These convictions, however, Austin Kendall was 
too shrewd to avow on most occasions. He adroitly 
graduated the expression of his sentiments to the 
tone of the society in which he happened to find him- 
self. 

In one way and another Kendall had secured a 
good deal of influence over young Fosdick. Guy was 
attracted by the other’s cleverness and good fellow- 
ship, and amused by his detracting witticisms. It 
was in Kendall’s society that he had made his first bets 
at horse-racing, and tried his hand at gambling — in 


176 


LENOX DARE. 


short, sowed those few wild oats which he took good 
care should never reach the ears of his family. 

The older man had managed to place the younger 
under slight obligations by lending him some money 
on two or three occasions when Guy’s varied extrava- 
gances had straightened his. resources. The debts 
had been paid, for the most part, but they had left a 
certain sense of obligation on Guy’s side. This sense 
the older man would eagerly have deepened. He 
felt, from the beginning, that it would serve his inter- 
ests to have young Fosdick in his power. Nothing 
would have suited him better than the existence of 
some dark secret between the two — some secret 
which would place Guy at his mercy, and give the 
older man a lasting hold on the younger. He felt 
confident something was in the wind, when young 
Fosdick, whose restless habits he had learned, settled 
himself down contentedly for weeks at Hampton 
Beach. Indeed Kendall’s desire to “ scent the new 
game ” had quite as much to do with his appearance 
on the scene, as the dullness and heat which he af- 
firmed had driven him from the city. 

It was probably after his interview with Lenox 
Dare, that a plot, at whose blackness it seemed a fiend 
must have recoiled, first entered Austin Kendall’s 
mind. That interview had, as we have seen, im- 
pressed him with a very contemptuous opinion 
of the girl. “ The wonder was that anything so 
callow had managed to captivate that conceited young 
fop, Guy Fosdick !” Kendall had contrived to learn 
pretty much all that Guy knew of Lenox’s history. 
44 It appeared she was an orphan, left alone at the 


GUY FOSDICK AND HIS FRIEND. 


177 


beach by the backwoods people who had adopted her. 
Had she not been the most innocent little fool in 
the world she would never have consented to go off 
on a scatter-brained lark to Cambridge, with a young 
fellow of whom she knew nothing, save that he had 
introduced himself to her one day down on the rocks !” 

In this fashion Austin Kendall reasoned. In this 
way the plot, whose hideousness he would not have 
dared to reveal to living man, took shape in his brain. 
He told himself he would make this visit to Cam- 
bridge serve his own ends. Unsuspected by the 
young people, he would follow them on a later train ; 
he would haunt their steps during the day, and choose 
his own time for making his presence known to them ; 
he would see to it that they did not return as they 
intended. He felt sure of managing Guy ; he would 
ply the young fellow with wine and kindle all his 
baser nature ; he felt no scruple for the innocent, 
helpless girl he was luring to her ruin ; he had no 
care for the young life he would spoil at its fresh 
blossoming ; he only gloated over the thought that 
the evil, once done, there would be a secret betwixt 
him and Guy Fosdick which the proud young fellow 
would sooner cut off his right hand than have the 
world suspect — a secret which would give him a life- 
long hold on the rich banker’s son. 

During the two days that followed that interview 
with Lenox Dare Austin Kendall was like an evil 
genius to Guy Fosdick. He seemed to touch the 
other’s soul only to find some weakness, only to 
bring out some hidden plague-spot. All his witti- 
cisms, all his half-veiled jests, had a purpose which 


178 


LENOX DARE. 


he did not yet venture to bring to the light. He 
managed, too, with great adroitness, to have the 
young fellow understand his estimate of Lenox Dare. 
That also had its effect. If one side of young Fos- 
dick’s nature had answered to the pure, high-souled 
girl, there was another side that responded to Kendall’s 
influences. More and more, as the days went on, Guy 
sank under that evil spell — deeper and deeper he 
was drawn into the snare that had been laid for him. 

It was a little curious that the young people never 
mentioned Austin Kendall’s name when they met. 
Some feeling, which he probably did not analyze, held 
Guy silent, while Lenox’s inveterate dislike for the 
man sealed her lips. 

Yet, whenever he came away from Lenox Dare 
some curious lines of a poem he had read long ago 
would come up in Guy Fosdick’s memory. They 
haunted him almost like a conscience. Under all his 
pride and conceit they made him uneasy, as they kept 
singing on in his thoughts : 

“ ’Tis an awkward thing to play with souls. 

And matter enough to save one’s own.’* 


CHAPTER XI. 


BEHIND THE PAVILION. 

I N a line nearly opposite the cottage where Lenox 
Dare was staying a little pagoda-shaped summer 
house stood, on a bank of stones heaped by great 
spring tides. It was a pleasant place to sit and look 
out x)n the sea, when its blue calm was like that of 
the brooding sky — when the waves played their soft, 
dreamy tune on the shingle. 

Late in the afternoon, of a sultry day, Lenox Dare 
came down across the road to the summer-house. It 
was inclosed by a narrow circular bench. Lenox had 
a volume of Longfellow with her. She had a fancy 
to read some of her favorite poems to the soft chorus 
of the summer waves. These she thought might 
breathe some new, beautiful meanings into the words. 
She threw herself down on the stones and leaned 
against the bench. She was in no hurry to open the 
book. Her thoughts came and went in vague, wan- 
dering ways, like the light breezes about her. She 
was to visit Cambridge the next day with Guy Fos- 
dick. He had been to see her that afternoon, and it 
had all been arranged between them. She wondered 
how it would seem to her, and if the old town would 
be in the least like what she imagined. 

179 


180 


LENOX DARE. 


The soft air, the lulling sound of the waves, all 
tended to make Lenox drowsy. In a little while the 
blue sea, and the white, distant sails grew dim. Her 
lids drooped, her head sank down on the bench, and 
in a few minutes she was sound asleep. 

She must have slept for a long time, for the sun 
had sunk below the horizon, and the tide had turned, 
when she awoke. One great cloud made a lake of 
yellow fire in the west. Land and sea lay enfolded 
in the soft brown garment of the twilight. It was 
such a lovely, peaceful world into which Lenox Dare 
awoke, from her long sleep, that it might have been 
the very gate of Heaven. She had just time to gaze 
about her, and realize where she was, when she heard 
voices in the arbor. Then she knew these must have 
awakened her. 

In a moment she recognized the voices. One was 
Guy Fosdick’s, and the other, to her amazement, was 
Austin Kendall’s. Lenox had no idea he was still at 
Hampton. 

The two were talking in a loud, hilarious tone. 
Even had it been a low one, Lenox could not have 
failed to catch every syllable through the thin board- 
ing of the arbor. The young men had come up from 
the beach, and the little white pavilion behind which 
she sat hid her from sight. The girl’s first impulse 
was to spring up and slip out of ear-shot of conversa- 
tion not intended for her hearing ; but before she had 
time to collect her senses she caught a sentence or 
two which rooted her to the spot. 

It was Austin Kendall who spoke first, as he took 
out a cigar, and then passed the case to Guy. 


BEHIND THE PAVILION. 


181 


“ Well, my dear fellow, how much longer is this 
pretty farce, flirtation — whatever you choose to call 
it — to last ? Do you really intend to spend the rest 
of the summer in this slow old town, with no other 
occupation than to moon round the rocks, and talk 
sentiment by the sea ? I should fancy all that must 
get to be a devilish bore after a while !” 

Guy laughed. Lenox had never heard him laugh 
in just that tone before. The truth was, he had, fol- 
lowing Kendall’s example, drunk mope wine than 
usual at dinner. 

“ I can’t swear how soon I shall be able to cut 
loose,” he replied. “ Some of my class — capital fel- 
lows, too — are camping out in the Maine woods, fish- 
ing, hunting, and having jolly times generally. They 
wrote me last week, to join them, but when a fellow’s 
over head aud ears and all that — I say, Kendall, 
what’s he to do ?” 

“ You won’t be at a loss, my fine fellow, how to 
throw up the game when you begin to grow sick of 
it. I confess, though, I can’t quite understand the 
nature of your enchantment. How did that sort of 
Phillis contrive to take down such a fastidious young 
dog as you are ? Did you try a rustic specimen this 
time by way of variety, you, who can have the pick 
of the charmers ?” 

Kendall had never ventured so free an expression 
of his opinion of Lenox Dare. But Guy took no 
offence. He was, as we have seen, a little excited 
with wine, and then his whole tone of thought and 
speech was always lowered in Kendall’s society. 

“ By George !” he cried fervently, “ you don’t know 


182 


LENOX DARE. 


the creature, Kendall ! She’s got more brains, more 
power to hold a fellow, than a whole drawing-room of 
ordinary beauties. I tell you those eyes of hers, or 
some other fascination of the little witch, have drawn 
me more than once to the edge of a proposal, before I 
realized what I was about.” 

“ Fosdick,” said Kendall, taking his cigar from his 
mouth, and gravely surveying his friend, “ Isee you’re 
badly smashed ! I’m ready to serve you in any way 
I can. Does that lark to Cambridge, you were tell- 
ing me about, come off to-morrow ?” 

“ That was all arranged between us to-day,” an- 
swered Guy. “We take an early train. The small 
young woman regards that projected trip as about the 
jolliest adventure of her whole life. I’ve done my 
best, too, to fan the flame of her enthusiasm,” and he 
whistled a note or two of some gay air. 

Kendall broke into a loud laugh. The sound made 
the bewildered, white-faced girl outside, crouch and 
shudder. Then he said — but I will not soil my 
pages by going any further into the conversation that 
followed. Suffice it, that, as it went on, Kendall — 
the wine heating his brain more and more, as it did 
Guy’s — let his villainous purpose come partly to the 
light. It never bared its face to open view. The 
hideous features skulked behind coarse jest and foul 
innuendo, and vile suggestion, that admitted of more 
than one interpretation. 

Guy Fosdick looked first dazed, then shocked, then 
pretended not to see Kendall’s drift. He probably 
would not have acknowleged that he did to his own 
soul. But he, too, had his jest, his laugh — with a 


BEHIND THE PAVILION. 


183 


touch of something in it that must have sent a flash 
of triumph through any listening demon. 

Kendall watched his companion keenly. The vil- 
lain was satisfied with his first tentative approach. 

He did not venture, at this time, to go into any de- 
tails. It was enough for him that young Fosdick 
had not knocked him down — had not fled from his 
presence as he would from the very mouth of hell ! 

When the two left the arbor, together, Kendall felt 
all the secret triumph of the wicked. His plot was 
bound to succeed, he thought. His hold on this 
youth of fortune and family would thereafter be se- 
cured. Kendall had his own plans — howto secretly 
follow the young people ; how to pave the way to the 
chambers of death ! All this time he had a secret 
contempt for young Fosdick — thought him at bot- 
tom “ a shallow, conceited young aristocrat.” 

The talk in the arbor did not probably consume 
fifteen minutes. Lenox Dare, sitting on the stones, 
with her head reclining on the low bench, just as she 
had awakened, had caught, with strained senses, every 
syllable, every tone. For, as the girl listened, some 
instinct of heart or brain had discerned Kendall’s 
meaning — had gone straight to the foul plot — had 
caught at the hideous face that leered behind the 
masking jest and innuendo. 

She heard the steps of the two men die softly along 
the pebbly shore before she stirred ; but it was into 
another world that Lenox Dare lifted the head she 
had laid down a little while before to sweet slumbers, 
to happy dreams. Her face was livid ; her eyes were 
wide and strained ; her teeth chattered in the warm 
summer night. 


184 


LENOX DARE. 


It could never be to her the same world, she 
thought — never what it had been when she laid 
down to sleep — God’s happy world of summer land, 
and shining sea, and blue lieaverr of sky ; it was a 
place where demons stalked abroad to ravage and 
devour ; it was the home of all unclean creatures, of 
all foul deeds ! 

Terribly as Lenox Dare must, under any circum- 
stances, have been shocked by a revelation of the 
peril that had come so close to her, her horror was 
doubly enhanced by her previous ignorance of the 
world. In a moment the gulf had opened, the awful 
Valley of Gehenna been revealed to her. 

It seemed to the poor child that she could never 
be glad or gay again — that she had come so near the 
evil that the foul, leprous taint must cling to her 
forever. Her thoughts leaped in a flash over the last 
three weeks — took in every event of her acquaint- 
ance with Guy Fosdick ; she gasped for breath, and 
writhed ; a low, sharp moan of exceeding agony 
broke from her lips ; her conduct now seemed some- 
thing unpardonable in her own eyes — it was fatuous, 
mad, criminal. At this time, as years before, her 
vivid imagination turned her enemy and tormented 
her. In the agony of her remorse she shrank from 
the thought of meeting any human being. Above 
all, how could she look Ben Mavis or his mother in 
the face ! She remembered their reluctance at going 
off and leaving her alone by the sea. And she had 
met their fears with her light jest, with her careless 
laugh ; she had not known that the spoiler was in 
the world ; she could have no instinct that he might 
cross her way ! 


BEHIND THE PAVILION. 


185 


And the waves sang on below, the same happy 
song they had been singing for hours, and the 
moon rose in white splendor over the sea, and the 
night was something closer and diviner than all the 
glory of the vanished day; but Lenox Dare saw 
nothing of all this ; she sat there in the shadow of 
the little pavilion, with her hands clasped around her 
knees ; but she was out in the desert, and she heard 
the cry of the wolves on her track ; she was in the 
wide, lonely wilderness, and the air was filled with 
the flapping of unclean wings, with the mocking and 
laughter of hunting fiends ! 

It was, at least, two hours since the young men had 
left the little summer-house, and Lenox had hardly 
stirred in that time. To one watching a little way 
out at sea, the slight, dim figure in the shadow of the 
summer-house might have seemed a spell-bound naiad 
— at least, that was what somebody thought on first 
catching sight of the girl after he had mounted a low 
ledge of stones at a point only a few yards from where 
she sat. It was Guy Fosdick. 

For the last half hour he had been searching for 
Lenox. At the house, where he had gone first, he 
learned she had not yet been in to supper. Her out- 
door habits sufficiently accounted for her absence. 
Guy had gone to various of her favorite haunts in 
quest of her. He was too much fascinated to feel 
quite easy if she were long out of his sight. Even 
Kendall could not succeed in holding him more than 
a few hours. 

But it was no part of the former’s plan to interpose 
any obstacles to Guy’s interviews with Lenox Dare. 


186 


LENOX DARE. 


The more deeply the young fool was bewitched, the 
more easy to manage him, Kendall had reasoned. 

Guy stood still for a moment, watching the motion- 
less figure. There was an amused expression in his 
eyes. He thought of the time he had first caught 
sight of Lenox Dare sitting on the rocks, with the 
tides rising about her. The sea and the moonlight 
had spell-bound her again, he thought. In a moment 
he stepped forward, calling gayly, “Ah, you truant, 
you have transformed yourself into a sea-goddess 
again, and are Thetis once more keeping watch over 
your waves !” 

When she heard the voice she sprang to her feet, 
as though she had been stung by a sudden blow. 
Guy saw the white young face, the burning eyes 
under the cloud of dark hair. 

“ Stop !” she said. 

The low voice, the slight, imperious gesture, made 
him pause. The moonlight shone full upon the faces 
of both, for a moment, as they looked at each other. 

“ What is the matter, Lenox ?” exclaimed Guy in 
a startled tone, and he drew nearer. They were only 
a few yards from each other. 

W as it that slight gesture again, was it the white 
face, was it the burning eyes that stopped him once 
more ? In a moment she spoke again in a low keyed, 
steady voice. “I was sitting outside when you and 
that man came into the arbor. I had fallen asleep. 
Your voice woke me up. I heard what you said to 
each other there !” 

“The devil you did!” Guy burst out. Then he 
stood still, and his face was white — white almost as 


BEHIND THE PAVILION. 


187 


Lenox Dare’s. Had there been time for a second 
thought she would probably never have told Guy 
what she had overheard. In the shock which his 
sudden presence gave her the words had forced 
themselves from her lips. In the instant of silence 
that followed, the two white young faces confronted 
each other. 

Then, with a desperate effort at self-exculpation, 
Guy burst out : “ It was all that villain Kendall’s 
work. I was a fool, I know, for listening to his vile 
stuff, though I never dreamed of what was coming, 
and was not altogether myself, for the fiend had been 
forcing his wine on me at dinner. A fellow doesn’t 
like to make that sort of confession to a girl. I 
wish the foul-tongued villain had never crossed my 
path, but the talk } r ou overheard was his, not mine, 
Lenox Dare!” 

She stood quite still, her great accusing eyes staring 
at him while he was speaking. But she hardly knew 
what he said. It seemed every moment as though 
the live pain at her heart would break into a cry. 
Without uttering a word, without making a sign, 
she turned and left him. 

He too stood still and watched her — a slight, girlish 
figure, moving up the sandy road in the moonlight, 
and he knew she was going from him forever — knew 
that she must always think of him with loathing and 
horror — knew that he must hereafter seem to the 
pure soul of this girl something too vile for her to 
name ! 

He ground his teeth together. A tumult of rage, 
passion, remorse was in his soul. He had always 


188 


LENOX DARE. 


plumed himself on being a gentleman. What had he 
proved himself to this girl ? At that moment all that 
was best and strongest in the soul of Guy Fosdick 
awoke and mastered him. All his pride and conceit, 
all the influences and ambitions of a life were swal- 
lowed up in the supreme passion of the moment. It 
seemed as though he and Lenox Dare were alone in 
the universe. One supreme desire possessed him. 
That was to rehabilitate himself in this girl’s opinion. 
If he could only prove to her that he was not the 
villain she took him for there was nothing he was 
not ready to dare — nothing he would not sacrifice ! 
What was there he could do ? While he asked him- 
self this question the slender, girlish figure was grow- 
ing dimmer up the road, in the silver mists of moom 
light. 

Guy Fosdick gave a sudden start. A new idea 
flashed through him. His pulses leaped. There was 
one way in which he might prove to Lenox Dare that 
he was not — what he had seemed those few minutes 
in the arbor. 

He remembered his family — his proud old name 
— his place in the world. Then a look of mighty 
resolve lifted his face into some nobler expression 
than it had' ever worn before ; and the watching 
moon looked down and saw it. She saw him sud- 
denly lift his hand and snap his fingers. That simple 
act was the sublimest of Guy Fosdick’s life. It 
meant a defiance of all that had hitherto been his 
world. 

“ Let it go !” he cried, “ I will prove myself a 
man !” And he started up the road after the figure 
that had grown dim in the moonlight. 


BEHIND THE PAVILION. 


189 


Lenox Dare had almost reached the gate of the 
cottage when Guy Fosdick suddenly sprang before 
her. She gave one little startled cry and then stood 
still. She had not heard his steps in the soft sand as 
they approached her. He too stood still, drawing a 
deep breath or two before he spoke. “ Lenox,” he 
began, and his voice shook with the passion of feel- 
ing behind it, “ I have come to prove to you I was 
not the villain I seemed. I have come to ask you, 
what I never asked any woman before : Lenox Dare, 
will you be my wife f 9 

“ Your wife ! Your wife !” gasped the girl. 

“Yes,” he went on rapidly, but with a life-and- 
death earnestness in every syllable. “ This very night 
— to-morrow — any day you will name, so that it will 
be soon ! I ask this, not because I seek to make any 
reparation for what has happened, but because I love 
you better than I supposed I ever could love any- 
thing in the world. You can make another and a 
nobler man of me. For your sake I am ready to give 
up all my old ambitions and idols. Let them go ! 
Let me hear you say you will be mine, Lenox !” He 
drew a step nearer. There was a light in his eyes 
such as had never shone on any woman before. 

She stopped him again, with that light, imperious 
wave of her hand, which set him at such an infinite 
remoteness. “ Marry you, Guy Fosdick — you !" she 
said. Her voice was low, but it was full of unutter- 
able amazement and horror. At that moment the 
young girl’s look and tone might have become a 
roused princess to whom some low-born hind had 
dared to offer his hand. 


190 


LENOX DAllE. 


But all this only inflamed the lover’s passion. All 
the heart, all the coprage, all the manhood of Guy 
Fosdick spoke now. They probably would never 
speak so again. This was, without doubt, the noblest 
hour of his life ; and it is no small thing for a man to 
forget himself, to put aside the teachings and tradi- 
tions of his life, even for an hour. 

Guy Fosdick gave a sort of groan in which wrath, 
tenderness, dismay, all had a share. Then his voice 
broke into impassioned pleading again. “ But hear 
what I am offering you, Lenox Dare, before you an- 
swer me in that terrible way ! I offer you an old, 
honorable name, and the fortune I inherit with it. 
As my wife you will have the highest social position ; 
you will meet the people that a nature like yours 
can alone really enjoy ; you will have every oppor- 
tunity to develop and cultivate yourself. Wealth, 
ease, a refined and elegant home — these, life’s great 
prizes — are what I offer you. You are so young — 
you know so little of the world that you may not un- 
derstand their true value now, but you will see it later, 
and bitterly repent, if you put away all that I bring 
you to-night — all that will never come to you again. 
Don’t let your grief and anger blind you, Lenox ! If 
I did not hold you in the most absolute respect in my 
whole thought and heart do you think I could stand 
here and plead in this way ! Do you not see I am 
paying you the highest tribute a man can pay to a 
woman ! I know you better than you know yourself ; 
I know that I can make your future proud and 
happy as no other man ever can. Come to me — try 
me, Lenox — say that you will be my wife !” 


BEHIND THE PAVILION. 


191 


She was young, as he said. Had she been older 
she would no doubt have listened to this speech with 
a larger comprehension of the man’s mood and feel- 
ing. For Guy Fosdick had spoken from his heart. 
Nobody would have doubted that who saw his deadly- 
pale face in the moonlight — who heard the tones 
of his pleading, impassioned voice. But a mood 

— even though it be all powerful — though it may 
possess one wholly for the time — does not make a man. 

Lenox Dare had not in the least recovered from 
the recoil and horror of the last hours. Young Fos- 
dick’s offer, coming thus swiftly on all that had 
passed, was a fresh shock — was, to her inexperience, 
a new outrage. All her grief and shame quivered 
again. It seemed blasphemy for this man to dare 
to talk to her of love, marriage, in the face of all 
that had passed! “ Honorable name — wealth — ease 

— elegant home !” She went over the words slowly, 
as though she were trying to make them quite clear 
to herself. Then she turned on him with an awful 
scorn in her bright, wide eyes — in her young, white 
face. “ Do you think so meanly of me ?” she asked. 
“ Do you imagine such things could tempt me ? You 
make me happy, Guy Fosdick, when I can never be 
that again, because I must always remember these 
three weeks we have been together ! ” Her voice fal- 
tered there, but, in a moment, the white, tremulous 
face grew calm again. “ Marry you ! ” said Lenox 
Dare, in low, quiet tones, and with that little, invol- 
untary gesture which set such infinite spaces between 
them. Sooner than do that I would lie down and die 
here, this minute ! ” 


192 


LENOX DARE. 


With these words she turned and left him; and 
again he stood still and watched the slight, girlish 
figure as it went steadily up the bare, sandy road, in 
the moonlight, and passed inside the cottage gate. 


CHAPTER XII. 


THE LAST OF GUY FOSDICK. 

HE lights from the cottage parlor streamed out 



X into the road. Guy Fosdick could see through 
the open windows the single occupant of the room, a 
lady-boarder, who sat reading by the table. He recog- 
nized the profile at a glance. It was that of a lady 
whom he had known from boyhood, and who fre- 
quently visited at his house. She had come down 
to the sea the week before, and was staying under the 
same roof with Lenox Dare. Guy had met Mrs. En- 
dicott several times at the cottage. He had intro- 
duced Lenox to her. 

In a moment he saw the girl enter the room. The 
lady, he thought, must have called to her as she 
passed the door. She gave her a letter. And as 
Lenox took this, and was turning away, Mrs. Endi- 
cott detained her with some remark. 

All this passed in a few seconds. But in that brief 
time, Guy Fosdick, standing in the moonlit road, just 
as Lenox had left him, his whole being in a tumult 
of shame, desperation, and something which, if it was 
not love, resembled that emotion more nearly than 
any thing he had ever felt before — in those few mo- 


193 


194 


LENOX DARE. 


merits Guy Fosdick had come to a sudden resolve, 
lie never could have formed it in any other mood — 
at any other moment of his life. But Lenox’s terri- 
ble words were still ringing in his ears — : through his 
soul. The dread lest he deserved them half-mad- 
dened him. If he could prove that he was not all 
she believed him — prove it to her, to himself, to the 
universe ! For at that moment he seemed to stand 
there transfixed, branded — he who had hitherto made 
it his chief pride and loftiest aim to be a gentleman — 
after his code and kind. But his masque of conceits 
and vanities had suddenly fallen, and he saw some- 
thing that made him recoil ; something that made 
whatever courage and manliness he had at bottom 
take up arms against it. 

There was, after all, a better side to this Guy Fos- 
dick than the one I have been showing you. Once 
in his life he proved this. In the passion of that 
time, his thought and his purpose followed each 
other, as the thunderbolt follows the lightning. 

Lenox Dare had almost reached the door when 
there came a sudden knock, and the next instant Guy 
Fosdick was in the room. His face was livid, but 
every line was set with some life-and-death resolve. 
His sudden reappearance after what had passed, and 
some look in his eyes, gave the girl a fresh shock. She 
stood breathless, motionless, in dread of what was 
coming. 

She had not long to wait. Guy approached the 
lady at the table, and, bowing to her, said in a voice 
steady and clear as voices are when they speak 
from the soul, “ Mrs. Endicott, you have known me 


THE LAST OF GUY FOSDICK. 


195 


from my boyhood, and I believe you have always re- 
garded me as an honorable man — as one who would 
keep his word ?” 

“ I certainly never had any doubt of it, Mr. Fos- 
dick,” answered the lady, a good deal startled, but 
with her usual graciousness of manner. 

“ Then, Mrs. Endicott, you will believe I mean 
what I say, when I declare, in your presence, that I 
desire to make this young lady, Miss Lenox Dare, 
my wife ; and that I am ready to marry her to-night, 
if she will consent to take me, and if you will be 
present to witness our union.” 

For a little while, Mrs. Endicott was too dumb- 
founded to open her lips. She sat still, staring from 
one young face to the other. At last the blank 
amazement cleared up a little in her eyes, and she 
said, turning to Lenox, and resuming the half-patron- 
izing air which had become second nature with her : 
“ My dear, you heard what Mr. Fosdick has just said. 
It is your place to reply to him.” 

Lenox moved forward a step ; her face was deadly 
pale. It had been so when she entered the room. 
Mrs. Endicott thought the girl was worn out with 
one of her imprudent walks. She had recovered from 
the bewilderment into ivhich Guy’s sudden entrance 
had thrown her ; she seemed perfectly calm, though 
her heart fluttered, and her nerves shivered. 

She looked Guy in the face steadily, as she had 
done out there in the moonlight. 

“ Mr. Fosdick,” she said, “you had my answer a 
few moments ago. Do not compel me to repeat what 
I said then.” 


196 


LENOX DAEE. 


There was a little sharp entreaty in the last words. 
The long agitation was beginning to tell heavily on 
soul and body. 

The young man was himself under too great a 
strain to protract the interview. He had done what 
he could. He walked to the door without uttering a 
word. Then he turned to the elder woman, and said, 
“You at least, Mrs. Endicott, believe that I have to- 
night, in good faith, offered my heart and hand to 
Lenox Dare ?” 

“I believe it, certainly, Mr. Fosdick,” answered the 
lady ; but she thought to herself she had never in all 
her life been so nearly stunned. 

When he had reached the door, Guy turned and 
looked at Lenox. She knew what the entreaty in his 
eyes meant. There was a new look in his face, too — 
the exultant consciousness that he had proved him- 
self a man of courage and honor. In that higher 
mood to which he had risen he did not even blench 
when the thought flashed across him, “ What a 
breeze this affair will make about Beacon Hill ! Mrs. 
Endicott will never be able to hold her tongue.” 

Lenox did not stir to the dumb entreaty of those 
eyes. Then Guy bowed to her and went out. 

Mrs. Endicott spoke now, with the air of one whose 
years and position gave her a certain authority : 
“ My dear, the young man wishes to speak with you. 
After the offer he has just made you, you cannot re- 
fuse so small a favor.” 

A shadow of doubt and pain wavered for a moment 
over Lenox’s face. Then, without a word, she rose 
and went out. 


THE LAST OF GUY FOSDICK. 


197 


Guy had not reached the gate when he heard the 
door open, and, turning, he saw Lenox standing on 
the threshold. He came back instantly. 

“Thank you for coming, Lenox,” he said, grate- 
fully and eagerly. 

And then the two stood still a moment, and they 
looked in each other’s faces ; and each knew that it 
was for the last time. 

“ Will you not do me this one last grace, Lenox ?” 
said Guy, solemnly. “ Will you not tell me you be- 
lieve I was in earnest in what I said to-night, tell me 
that you believe, in spite of — what you know — 
there was a better side to me, and that I was ready 
to dare and live all that I said ?” 

There was a little pause. Into the stillness her 
voice came, shaken a good deal, and hardly above a 
whisper : “ I believe you were in earnest, Guy Fos- 
dick. I shall always try to remember that when I 
think of you.” 

The tears actually shone in the young fellow’s 
eyes ; but Lenox’s were bright and dry with pain. 

“If you will shake hands with me once more; it 
will be for the last time !” he said. 

Again she wavered a moment. Then she said 
solemnly: “If you will promise from this hour to 
end all acquaintance with that man — if you will 
promise that you and he shall be as the dead to each 
other, I will shake hands with you.” 

“ I swear it, Lenox,” he answered. 

She placed her hand in his. How cold hers 
was ! He felt the shudder that thrilled it ; but he held 
it a moment closely, and looked in her face as he had 


198 


LENOX DARE. 


never looked in the face of woman before ; and then, 
without another word, he went away, through the wet 
grass, in the summer moonlight. 

Lenox Dare went to her own room, and sat down 
by the window. Mrs. Endicott, when she came up- 
stairs a little later, found the girl there. Something 
in the attitude of that young, solitary figure struck 
the woman. She had come up-stairs now, impelled 
partly by curiosity, partly by some generous feeling. 
The scene she had witnessed between the }~oung 
people had quite startled her out of her usual deco- 
rous calm. Mrs. Endicott’s own life had been smooth, 
and shielded, and prosperous. Her soft gray curls 
shaded cheeks which still held bloom enough for 
their owner to be vain of them. She was not fitted, 
either by nature or experience, to enter into Lenox’s 
feelings ; but she told herself that the young girl 
needed, at this critical point of her life, some judicious 
and friendly adviser. Mrs. Endicott set a high esti- 
mate on her own qualifications for that role. Then 
she had taken a certain liking to Lenox. That 
glowing joyous girlhood had attracted the woman. 
Mrs. Endicott had daughters of her own, too, and 
what faint maternal instincts she had to spare for 
anything outside of herself were aroused. She came 
in with a soft tap at the door, with a slight rustle of 
her dress, and seated herself at the foot of the bed, 
a little way from the figure in that silver cloud of 
moonlight, by the window. 

“My dear child/’ she began, answering the startled 
look in the girl’s eyes, “ I have no curiosity to pry 
into your affairs.” The lady had no idea this little, 


THE LAST OF GUY FOSDICK. 


199 


tactful opening was a falsehood. “But I cannot re- 
frain from coming up here to give you the counsel of 
one old enough to be your mother. I cannot, of 
course, imagine the motives which made you refuse 
the young man’s offer. There could, at least, be no 
question of his earnestness in this matter. Girls of 
your age are sometimes rash — blind to their own 
best interests. Had you taken time to reflect you 
might not have made up your mind so absolutely. 
Young people are always liable to misunderstand- 
ings, to take mortal offense on very slight grounds. 
You ought not to act hastily where so much is at 
stake for yourself, Miss Dare.” 

Before she came up-stairs Mrs. Endicott had pict- 
ured to herself the dismay of theFosdicks had they 
witnessed the scene which had occurred in the low- 
roofed parlor. She had told herself she would be on 
her guard — she would assume no responsibility at 
this critical juncture; but she was too eager to get 
at Lenox’s secret to adhere closely to her programme. 

There was a little silence. Then Lenox’s voice came 
through the moonlight, almost like a cry — a cry of 
pain and of passionate determination : “ Nothing can 
make any difference between us, Mrs. Endicott. 
Nothing can make me change — what I said to-night. 
It is all settled, forever !” 

She could not lay bare her heart to this soft-voiced, 
fine-mannered lady. Wild horses, it seemed to Lenox, 
could not have torn the secret of that afternoon 
from her lips. 

Mrs. Endicott felt a good deal baffled and cha- 
grined at this reply. She was not a woman given 


200 


LENOX DARE. 


to romancing ; but, as she gazed at Lenox, a thou- 
sand extravagant theories arose in her mind to ac- 
count for this singular behavior. 

A sudden sense came over her of the grand fortune 
that had fallen to this girl, and that she was so im- 
periously thrusting aside. Mrs. Endicott was quite 
ignorant of Lenox’s history, beyond the few facts she 
had learned in their brief conversations ; but she did 
know that a splendid matrimonial prize , had fallen 
to her lot ; and an honest impulse of pity for her 
rashness and ignorance in rejecting her rare fortune 
impelled the lady to speak again. “ What if it were 
one of my own girls ?” she thought. 

“My dear,” she said again, and this time there was 
a touch of genuine feeling in the lady’s voice, “ you 
are very young, and you know so little of the world, 
that you can have no idea what you are putting away 
from you when you refuse an offer of marriage from 
Guy Fosdick. He is the heir of one of the oldest 
and wealthiest, and proudest families in Boston. 
There is not a girl in all his wide circle who would 
not feel herself honored by the proposal he has just 
made you. Then think of all he is in himself — cul- 
tured, high-bred, a perfect gentleman in manner and 
feeling. Why the beauties and belles of his own 
set are half wild over him ; and you treat this gal- 
lant lover, this honorable gentleman, with cool dis- 
dain ! You cannot realize what you are doing. I 
have daughters of my own ; and I speak to you, 
my dear, as I would to one of them. You may live 
to see your mistake when it is too late.” 

Mrs. Endicott’s speech was the echo of Guy Fos- 


THE LAST OF GUY FOSDICK. 


201 


dick’s, in the moonlit road. The voices of the two 
seemed almost, to Lenox’s excited imagination, to 
mingle into one. She could not recoil from Mrs. En- 
dicott as she had from Guy Fosdick, when he sought 
to move her in a more impassioned strain, but with 
the same arguments. 

“ Don’t! oh, don’t!” groaned out Lenox, and invol- 
untarily she lifted her hands with a swift, supplica- 
ing gesture. The next moment, however, she forced 
herself to be calm. She turned to the lady, and 
looked her in the face with bright, unflinching eyes. 
“ I understand it all, Mrs. Endicott,” she said. “ You 
mean to be very kind ; but you must forgive me for 
asking you not to say any more. It cannot change 
anything — it can only pain me.” 

She said this with such an air of quiet, womanly 
dignity, that Mrs. Endicott could hardly recognize 
her for the girl she had hitherto known. But there 
was no more to be said. The lady made some gra- 
cious apologies, and rustled out of the room, dreadfully 
puzzled and baffled. 

When Mrs. Endicott was alone once more she was 
quite amazed at her own indiscretion. She congrat- 
ulated herself that the Fosdicks would never know 
what she had said that night. She would have given 
those proud people mortal offence had she forwarded 
by word or act such a mesalliance as they would have 
regarded Guy’s marriage with Lenox Dare. 

When Austin Kendall called at young Fosdick’s 
door the next morning he learned that Guy had left 
Hampton by the earliest train. The man’s profound 
amazement' at this news was succeeded by a feeling 
of intense mortification and rage. 


202 


LENOX DARE. 


“ What the devil,” he asked himself, “ had made 
the young fellow clear out without a word or sign?” 
Kendall had told himself, as he rose that morning, 
that “ the game was in his hands !” He saw nuw 
that it had slipped out of them in some mysterious 
fashion. As he realized this there was an ugly flash 
in the e} r es of the baffled villain, and a fierce twist of 
the mouth under his black moustache. 

Austin Kendall made up his mind, with an oath, to 
get out of Hampton by the next train. He never 
learned, though he did his best to find out, what was 
at the bottom of Guy’s sudden departure that morn- 
ing. He only knew that young Fosdick had dropped 
him forever. 

Before many days had elapsed Guy was no doubt 
glad that Lenox had not taken him at his word. 
Remorse — passion — shame — all the strong emotions 
of the hour, had hurried him into an offer of marriage. 
But when, in a calmer mood, he looked back on the 
events of that night ; when time and absence had 
weakened the charm which had exercised such a pow- 
erful influence over him, young Fosdick must have 
flinched at the thought of all his rash, romantic 
marriage 'would have involved. He must have pic- 
tured to himself the family consternation and wrath, 
the jests of the club, the gossip of the world ; and 
he must have felt secretly relieved that he was not 
called to pay the price which his marriage with 
Lenox Dare would have cost him. 

All the same, Guy Fosdick never doubted that, in 
the moment when he stood wincing under the scorn 
and wrath of the high-souled girl, he had felt the 


THE LAST OF GUY FOSDICK. 


203 


noblest impulse of bis life, that he had been some- 
thing manlier and better than he would ever be 
again. 

In later years, the prosperous, courted man of the 
world would recall that story of his youth — a story 
he never repeated, even to the beautiful, fashionable 
woman he had married. And while he smoked his 
cigar or sipped his claret he would say to himself : 
“ If that girl had married me I should be a different 
man to-day ! ” 

He was probably mistaken. A man who has the 
right stuff in him will be likely to prove it without 
a woman to help him. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


ABOUT BEN MAVIS, 


HE letter which Mrs. Endicott had given Lenox 



X brought good news. Mrs. Mavis and her son 
intended to be at Hampton within three days. No 
tidings could have been so welcome. But the days, 
as they dragged over her, seemed endless to Lenox 
Dare. She was alone now ; even Mrs. Endicott had 
gone ; and Lenox was left by the sea, to the solitude 
and pain of her own thoughts, to the misery of a 
mood that for awhile robbed the world of its bright- 
ness and joy. 

You would not have known the girl — silent, list- 
less, brooding — for the happy, radiant creature of 
weeks before ; she hardly knew herself ; she seemed 
a changed being to her own consciousness. Soul and 
body reacted with slow painfulness from the shock 
they had received. 

Nature, too, seemed at this time to be in mysterious 
sympathy with Lenox’s mood. After weeks of almost 
unvarying brightness the wind veered, and a north- 
east storm drove in upon the coast. Clouds of cold, 
dreary gray lowered thick over sea and land. Lenox 
came and went those days regardless of wind or 
rain, her eyes shining at times in a bright, scared 


204 


ABOUT BEN MAVIS. 


205 


way. The people at the house did not know what to 
mkke of her. They attributed the change in her to 
loneliness and homesickness, and did their best, with 
imperfect success, to cheer her. She wandered off 
in the thick, gray fogs, she heard the deafening roar 
of the waves as they hurled themselves in white fury 
upon the sands, she listened to the thunder of the 
storm far out at sea. Voices of wrath and pain, 
cries of agony and despair, seemed to rise from the 
deep heart of the ocean. Through all the wild tu- 
mult of the storm she caught the wail of an awful 
secret, of an infinite sorrow ! She had, at times, an 
uncanny look, wandering about among the mists 
with the wet hair blown about her cheeks, and the 
strange, shocked look in- her bright eyes. 

She had hardly in her life known the sensation of 
fear ; but there were times now when she started 
with a sudden terror, half fancying she heard foot- 
steps behind her, or the fiendish ring of Austin Ken- 
dall’s laugh, as she heard it that night in the arbor. 
Even the memory of it made the girl shiver from 
head to foot ; she would hurry home, and reach her 
room panting with haste and fright, and shut her- 
self up there for hours. She tried to read, to divert 
herself in all sorts of ways, packing and unpacking 
her trunk several times a day, in order to escape 
from her thoughts and memories ; but the horror 
was too recent ; she could not put away what still 
hung in the very air about -her. Her perfect health 
alone saved her from a brain-fever at this crisis. 

But even now, Lenox Dare’s sharpest misery was 
not for herself. Despite the quivering of her nerves, 


206 


LENOX DARE. 


the wild terror that at moments overcame her, she 
felt in her deepest soul that she had escaped ; the 
snare had been set, the toils prepared in vain for 
their victim. She thanked God for that, almost with 
every breath she drew. But the awful thought was 
forever coming up that, as Austin Kendall was in 
the world, so there must be other monsters after his 
kind, and there were other lives to be spoiled — 
young, innocent lives like her own ! It was this 
thought that made the bitterest anguish of those 
three days by the sea, that made her feel the world 
could never wear the same look — never be the same 
happy world she had known. 

At the end of the three days Mrs. Mavis and Ben 
returned. When Lenox saw the dear faces, she gave 
a cry of joy — not very loud, but it was one that 
might have come from a lost child, who, after long 
wanderings and perils, catches a glimpse of its home 
among distant trees. 

In her first gladness Lenox could see that Mrs. 
Mavis looked pale and worn. In a little while the 
girl had learned the secret of her friends’ protracted 
absence. Ben’s aunt, after the arrival of her rela- 
tives, had grown rapidly worse, and had died during 
their visit. They had withheld the tidings lest they 
should add a deeper shade to Lenox’s loneliness. 
Her letters, overflowing with life and brightness, had 
gone far to allay the anxiety which both had felt 
for the young girl they had left behind, in a world 
utterly new to her. 

The time which the three had intended to be ab- 
sent was now nearly gone. The varied little pro- 


ABOUT BEN MAVIS. 


207 


gramme of travel and sight-seeing had been spoiled. 
It was no time to visit the great northern cities, while 
they lay parched with dust, and sweltering with mid- 
summer heats. Nobody was just now in a mood for 
fresh scenes. While they debated their next move- 
ments, each felt a secret longing for the home that 
waited, in its shaded quiet among the hills. But it 
was Lenox who, in the midst of the counsel, broke 
out suddenly: “ I don’t want to see any new places. 
There is nothing in the world like Briarswild. Let 
us go back there at once !” 

“ And we will carry out our old programme, or 
make a new one, next autumn,” rejoined Ben, in a 
tone whose cheerfulness showed how heartily he ac- 
cepted Lenox’s ultimatum. 

The next day they started for Briarswild. 

Lenox had been at home for a week. Among 
familiar scenes, in the midst of the old, happy life, 
the girl gradually came to herself. Her bright, 
healthy nature shook off the nightmare which had 
hung around her, and she was once more the centre 
of life and joy in the household. 

Yet Lenox Dare was conscious of a change in her- 
self — one that must last through all her life. That 
terrible hour behind the little sea-arbor was a gulf 
which separated her past from her present. An 
awful knowledge had come to her in a moment. She 
could never again be the young girl who had gone 
down to the sea in happy ignorance that summer 
afternoon. 

One day, when Mrs. Mavis awoke from a short 
nap, she found Lenox sitting on a low stool by the 


208 


LENOX DARE. 


lounge. A grave look in the girl’s eyes startled the 
woman. 

“ What is it, dear ?” she asked, sitting up suddenly. 

“ Something happened to me while I was at Hamp- 
ton — something you do not know !” 

“ That was what Ben said when he first saw you,” 
answered the mother. “ I thought it was nothing but 
your staying so long all alone in that strange place.” 

“ No, it was not that,” answered Lenox, in a low, 
impressive voice. “ I have been waiting all this time 
to tell you ; because, while it was so near, I could not 
speak of it.” 

“Was it so serious as that, Lenox?” asked Mrs. 
Mavis, a good deal startled by the girl’s manner. 

An hour after she had asked that question Mrs. 
Mavis knew the whole story. 

After Lenox began talking, the woman suddenly 
put her arm about the girl as though she would hold 
her back from some impending evil. The grasp 
tightened as the story went on. Mrs. Mavis did not 
once interrupt it by a word. She learned, in shud- 
dering silence, what peril had menaced the young 
speaker. 

“ Oh, can you ever forgive me ?” said Lenox, her 
voice breaking suddenly from its calmness into a pas- 
sionate sob as she concluded. She had pondered her 
acquaintance with Guy Fosdick until girlish indis- 
cretion began to seem heinous in her own eyes. 

“ Lenox,” said Mrs. Mavis, in her tenderest voice, 
“ it is only myself whom I shall find it hard to for- 
give.” 

Lenox’s eyes flashed a look of amazement through 
their tears. 


ABOUT BEK MAVIS. 


209 


“ I let you go out into the world, my child, igno- 
rant and innocent, as though it were a Garden of 
Eden. I should have warned you of the wickedness 
of men, of the perils that were lurking all around 
you. But I hated to touch your simplicity. It was 
lovely to me as the bloom on my roses. My poor 
child, what a price you have paid for my mistake !” 

Lenox, became, in her turn, the comforter. 

“ You meant it all for the best, dear Mrs. Mavis. 
I ought to have seen clearer for m} r self. What a 
blind folly it all seems now on my part !” 

She said these words half to herself. Mrs. Mavis 
was saying the same to her own soul ; for Lenox had 
written with perfect frankness of her acquaintance 
with Guy Fosdick, and of all the new interests and 
pleasures he had brought into her life. 

Perhaps, under other circumstances, Mrs. Mavis 
would have felt some uneasiness at this growing 
intimacy ; but, absorbed with anxiety for the sick 
woman, she was heartily thankful that Lenox had 
found something to brighten those lonely days by 
the sea-shore. She could not forgive herself for her 
fatuity. 

She began to realize for the first time that Lenox 
was no longer a child. She actually had had an 
offer of marriage ! Whatever else he had done, Guy 
Fosdick must have made that in good faith. But 
Mrs. Mavis saw that Lenox had returned to Briars- 
wild as heart and fancy-free as when she left it. 
There could be no mistaking her recoil at the mem- 
ory of those three weeks’ intimacy with young Fos- 
dick. Mrs. Mavis thanked God that the stranger, with 


210 


LENOX DARE. 


his fine talk and elegant manners, had not wiled away 
the heart of her darling. 

Ben Mavis saw that something was the matter. 
His mother had a startled, distrait look, such as he 
had never seen in her face before, and every little 
while she would turn and gaze at Lenox with tender, 
wistful eyes — at times, he fancied, with some terror 
in them. Young Mavis was wonderfully keen. lie 
had, as his mother’s remark proved, an instinct when 
he met Lenox, on his return to Hampton, that all had 
not gone well with her. But that fancy bad almost 
vanished from his mind as the girl brightened into 
her old self when they were once more at Briarswild. 
His old suspicions now returned with fresh vividness. 
For the first time, too, he began to associate the 
change he had perceived in Lenox with young Fos- 
dick. She had written with as much freedom to him 
as to his mother about the agreeable acquaintance 
she had formed so oddly on the rocks ; and Ben had 
felt honestly glad that “ the fellow had turned up in 
the nick of time !” 

It struck him now, however, that she had never, 
since their return, voluntarily alluded to her new ac- 
quaintance. Ben had expected to meet young Fosdick, 
and was surprised to learn from Lenox that he had 
been gone several days. He remembered all this 
now as he pondered his mother’s singular manner. 

The next time the two were alone together Ben 
startled the woman by saying suddenly, “ Mother, 
something has happened to Lenox !” 

“ How do you know that, Ben ?” asked his mother, 
quite thrown off her guard. 


ABOUT BEN MAVIS. 


211 


u Because I saw and mentioned it when we first 
returned to Hampton. Whatever the trouble is I 
am confident that fellow, young Fosdick, is at the 
bottom of it!” 

“ O Ben !” exclaimed his mother, and then she was 
silent. But the tone of her exclamation virtually 
admitted everything. Mrs. Mavis had been taken 
unawares. But she now reflected that, as Ben’s 
suspicions were aroused, it was best he should know 
the truth. She was confident, too, that Lenox would 
acquiesce in her judgment. 

As young Mavis listened to his mother’s story a 
terrible storm shook his soul. Wrath, horror, pity, 
by turns possessed him. There were moments when 
the soft-hearted young fellow set his jaws with the 
dark fury of a savage. He had never been possessed 
by such a demon of rage. His eyes blazed — he 
panted to spring upon Austin Kendall, and, in one 
instant, throttle the breath out of the villain — he 
longed to lay his hands on Guy Fosdick in blows 
that would have left their mark on his daint}^ flesh 
to the last hour of his life ; he walked the room — a 
savage vengeance, a murderous passion suddenly 
sprung to life in one who was tender as a woman to 
every animal that knew him for its master. 

Even his mother did not dream of the storm that 
was raging in him. It was not one of the kind that 
finds relief in words. She saw him pace the room 
with set jaws and blazing eyes. Sometimes she heard 
a low half-groan, half-growl, from his lips. But she 
was herself too agitated by the events she was re- 
lating to be fully conscious of her son’s excite- 
ment. 


212 


LENOX DARE. 


He could not bear that even his mother should see 
him while the storm was at work in his soul — he left 
her soon after she had finished her story. “ Some 
other time I will talk over this devil’s business,’’ 
he muttered, as he went away. 

In the hall he ran suddenly upon Lenox. She had 
just come in from out-doors, and was humming some 
gay tune to herself. She had felt happier ever since 
she had told Mrs. Mavis. 

Ben stood still, and stared at her like one dis- 
traught. When she caught the look in his eyes, the 
smile with which she had glanced up at him faded. 

“ O Ben, has your mother told you ?” she gasped, 
her thought leaping at once to the truth. 

For an instant her cheeks, her whole face, were 
scarlet. The next moment she turned very white ; 
she drew close to him. 

“ Are you angry with me, Ben — do you blame 
me ?” she cried out, with a sharp, appealing cry. 

“ No, Lenox,” he said, in a low voice, “ I do not 
blame you.” And he laid his hand softly on her 
hair. 

Something surged through him which made the 
strong man weak, something before which his fierce 
wrath died within him. A sudden tenderness shook 
his whole being. He knew now that the rage which 
had been a devouring fire within him had been for 
Lenox’s sake — not for his own — knew that he loved 
the girl who stood there, not dreaming of his feeling, 
with all the tenderness and. passion of his young 
manhood ! 

It came upon him so suddenly that he grew shy 


ABOUT BEN MAVIS. 


213 


as a woman. His heart throbbed wildly ; his lips 
trembled when he tried to speak. He smiled down 
on her, and something in the look of his eyes — they 
were wonderfully frank, bright eyes — touched Lenox’s 
heart. 

But he left her without saying a word, and plunged 
blindly into the deep, grassy lane at the back of 
the house. 

One evening, a week from that time, Ben Mavis 
and Lenox Dare came out to walk the piazza. It 
was a sultry night. The faintest of winds awoke, 
and then died away in the leaves. The new moon 
smiled, pale and sweet above the hills, and then left 
the sky alone with its stars. 

There had been no further allusion between them 
to what had happened at the sea-shore. Mrs. Mavis 
had explained to Lenox her motives for acquainting 
her son with the story. The girl’s reply at once 
set to rest any lurking anxiety she might have felt 
about betraying another’s secret. 

“ When I saw he knew, I was glad. You acted 
for the best, dear Mrs. Mavis, as you always do.” 

But the thought of what Lenox had barely es- 
caped was never absent from the heart of the mother 
and son. 

The young people walked awhile almost in silence. 
They listened to the faint sighing of the winds, to all 
the soft sounds that broke the stillness of the mid- 
summer night. The flowers drank in the dews, and 
breathed out fresh sweetness on the air. 

At last Lenox spoke : “ It must be dreadfully hot 
down in the valleys, to-night, Ben.” 


214 


LENOX DARE. 


“It must be, Lenox.” 

“ How glad I am we are up here in the cool of 
the hills ! O Ben, Briarswild is the one place in 
the world — I never want to go away from it again !” 

He felt the shudder that thrilled her ; he knew 
what was in her thought. 

“ Do you really feel like that, Lenox ?” he asked, 
hardly knowing that he spoke. 

“ Can you doubt it,” she answered, softly, half 
reproachfully, “ knowing, as you do, what Briars- 
wild has been to me ?” 

There was another little silence. The talk had 
suddenly awakened the bitterest and the tenderest 
memories of Lenox’s life. She recalled the night when 
she first stood, a friendless, houseless wanderer, on that 
piazza. She remembered the outstretched hands, 
the tender welcome that had met her, the love and 
care that had nursed her back to life and hope, and 
that in all these years had never failed her ; she 
remembered what the world outside had been to 
her — the miseries she had fled from at Cherry Hol- 
lows, the dangers that had haunted her at Hampton 
Beach. Briarswild had indeed been to this girl a 
Paradise in all the wild wilderness of the world. 

Her heart glowed in that hour with unutterable 
gratitude and tenderness toward the two who had 
made the gladness of her young life. 

Ben Mavis was thinking, too — thoughts that made 
his strong heart tremble — thoughts that Lenox’s words 
had awakened in him. Why should he not tell her 
now that this Briarswild which she loved waited for 
her — that if she would only say the word, she should 
be its proud young mistress from that hour. 


ABOUT BEN MAVIS. 


215 


No doubt Lenox would have been greatly startled 
— she had never dreamed of Ben Mavis in the light 
of a lover — but he was the only man in the world 
for whom she cared. There could be little doubt, 
had he asked her at that moment, what her answer 
would have been. 

Even Ben Mavis, who was not vain, had that night, 
and ever afterward, few misgivings as to the fate his 
offer would have met. In his inmost soul he felt 
assured that he might have led Lenox Dare from that 
midsummer night of stars and flowers, he might have 
stood with her before his mother, and said, “ This is 
your future daughter-in-law !” 

And he knew the woman would have welcomed the 
girl — would have blessed them both with joyful tears. 

While he was pondering he found Lenox had slipped 
from his side. She was back again almost before he 
had time to realize her absence. 

He could see in the dim light that she carried in 
her hand a freshly-blossomed tea-rose. It bad been the 
solitary flower on a bush he had planted for her in 
the spring. She had watched eagerly for the blossom- 
ing. She knew Ben’s liking for tea-roses. In her 
rush of grateful feeling she had suddenly darted off 
to pluck for him her one rare flower. 

“ Wait a moment, Ben !” she said, stopping him in 
the square of light that shone out from the hall. 
She bent down and fastened the flower in the button- 
hole of his light coat. Then she looked up sud- 
denly in his face, and he saw the smile that shone 
in her eyes. 

A wave of overpowering tenderness swept through 


216 


LENOX DARE. 


him. A mighty impulse almost overmastered him. 
He leaned forward, he opened his lips to speak. The 
next instant he would have caught that girlish figure 
and held it with passionate tenderness to his heart. 

What stayed him ? To this day Ben Mavis could 
not tell. Was there any subtle, counter influence at 
work ? Did any warning whisper come through the 
soft, midsummer night about him ? It was the piv- 
otal moment of his destiny and hers ! 

For some mysterious reason Ben Mavis paused at 
that instant. He mastered by a strong effort the im- 
pulse that was urging him to speak — to seize her in 
his strong, tender arms. 

“ Another time will do as well,” he said to him- 
self ; and in a moment he thanked her, with a voice 
that shook a little, for the flower she had brought 
him. 

Yet all the time he was wondering what had with- 
held him from speaking. He always wondered when 
he looked back on that night and saw how his own 
fate and hers had trembled in the balance ; but — a 
little for his own sake, a great deal more for Lenox 
Dare’s — there never came a time when Ben Mavis 
regretted that he had not spoken. 


CHAPTER XIV. 


TOM APTHOKP. 


HE next morning Lenox Dare was out in the 



l orchard. It was a grand old place, stocked 
with the finest fruit-trees in the county, and spread- 
ing for acres over a broad, southern slope of hill. 

Lenox had loved the old orchard from the time 
when she first came to Briarswild. Her favorite re- 
sort here was a corner close to the stone wall, under 
an ancient tree, whose branches stretched a wide, 
green roof over her, and dipped their burdens of 
ripened fruit into the deep grass. There was a long, 
low bench here, on which the girl could lie, and gaze 
down the slow incline of the land. She could see the 
long vistas of mossy trunks, the play of shadows, the 
witchcraft of sunlight. It was one of those places that 
would have been certain to fascinate a painter if he 
could have come some summer morning and sat down 
by Lenox Dare in the shadow of the old tree that 
had whitened with the blossoms of a hundred Mays. 

But this morning, the girl, stretched at full length 
on the low bench, had no glance to spare for the 
long, green vistas that stretched away into the 
depths of the orchard. She did not know that the 
light and shadows were making the loveliest tapes- 


217 


218 


LENOX DARE. 


tries around her. The robins sang, the insects 
hummed, the leaves twinkled overhead ; but, ab- 
sorbed in a book, all these were lost on Lenox 
Dare. 

The air had cooled during the night, and a light 
breeze was stirring in the tops of the branches. The 
girl, in the shadows of the great tree, read on. 
Through the still, brooding, midsummer morning, 
there came no whisper to her that she had reached 
a great turning-point in her destiny. An hour was 
striking now which she could not hear, but which 
told the watching Fates that she had reached the 
“ turning of the roads.” 

“ There is a gentleman in the parlor who asked to 
see you, ma’am.” 

Lenox looked up from her book, and saw the girl 
standing there, who, after searching the house over, 
had come to the orchard in quest of her. * 

It was anything but agreeable tidings. There was 
not a man in the world whom Lenox regarded worth 
leaving her book for, at that particular moment. It 
was dreadfully exasperating, she thought. Why had 
he appeared just as she had reached the thrilling 
climax of her story ! 

“ Who is he f What does the creature want ?” she 
asked, in a vexed tone, as she scrambled off from 
the bench and shook out her rumpled dress. 

The girl could give her no information, as she was 
herself freshly imported from a neighboring county, 
and had been only a week at Briarswild. Mrs. 
Mavis and Ben were away for the morning. Lenox 
had no choice but to go. 


TOM APTHORP. 


219 


The walk from the orchard to the house gradually 
restored the girl’s good humor. As she mounted the 
steps of the side piazza she took off her shade hat, 
and half her hair, carelessly gathered at the back, 
tumbled after it. She swept the dark gleaming cloud 
behind her ears, not dreaming what a background it 
made for the delicate, girlish face. The heat had 
brought a glow into her cheeks that usually lacked the 
bloom of their age. She wore a white dress — 
she remembers it to this day — and partly because 
she loved color, and partly for girlish caprice, she had 
tied a bright scarlet scarf around her waist that 
morning. 

As Lenox crossed the parlor threshold she saw a 
stranger standing by the window. He turned as she 
entered. He was a slender man, a little above me- 
dium height, with striking, delicate features. He 
was probably a little past fifty. His beard was white, 
and his dark hair was deeply threaded with gray. 
His complexion was sallow, like that of one who had 
been ill, or dwelt long in southern latitudes. The 
eyes, under well-arched bi:pws, were of a bright, 
piercing gray. He wore a dark travelling suit. One 
would have seen at the first glance that he was a 
gentleman. 

Lenox stood still a moment, in mute surprise. The 
stranger was silent, too ; but the piercing gray eyes 
devoured the girlish figure on the threshold. What 
an eager, riveted look it was ! It seemed for a mo- 
ment to absorb the man’s whole soul — to take away 
the power or the will to speak. One might fancy 
he would have looked like that had some ghost 
stood in. the door-way. 


220 


LENOX DARE. 


Lenox was naturally shy with strangers. Her 
cheeks grew scarlet under that breathless stare. She 
felt a strange thrill of uneasiness, as though the air 
about her was burdened with some myster}^. In- 
voluntarily she moved forward a step, and grasping 
her shade hat a little nervously with both hands, said : 
“ I was told you asked for Lenox Dare.” 

The stranger seemed to listen a moment before he 
spoke. One might fancy again, something in the 
voice struck him as an old, familiar sound. 

Then he moved forward a step, and spoke. His 
voice was usually clear and pleasant, but just now it 
was husky and broken. 

“ Yes ; I asked for Lenox Dare, and Evelyn Ap- 
thorp seems to stand before me !” 

“ That was my mother’s name !” cried Lenox, for- 
getting everything else now. “Oh, sir, did you know 
her ?” 

“ My child, did you ever hear of Tom Apthorp?” 
And as he asked this the stranger drew nearer. 

“ He was my mother’s brother,” Lenox answered. 
“ He went to India, and died there, before I can re- 
member.” 

“ No, he did not die there, as you have been told. 
My child I am your mother’s brother, Tom Ap- 
thorp ! ” 

For a moment the room whirled about Lenox. She 
grew very pale. Then she gave a long, gasping cry, 
half of pain and half of joy. A new feeling awoke in 
her soul. A mysterious tie drew her mightily toward 
this man. 

And he — his arms were around her the next mo-. 


TOM APTHORP. 


221 


ment — he was kissing her, while the tears shone in 
his eyes, on his glimmering beard ; he was calling her 
his darling, the daughter of his long-lost Evelyn ! 

Three hours later Mrs. Mavis and Ben returned. 
No words can depict their amazement when Lenox 
met them at the door, her face transfigured with hap- 
piness, leaning on the arm of the distinguished-look- 
ing stranger, whom she introduced as Uncle Tom, her 
mother’s brother — - not risen from the dead, but come 
from the Indies, after more than twenty years’ ab- 
sence. 

Tom Apthorp had been an only son, a handsome, 
promising youth, a good deal spoiled by his parents. 
He had barely got through college when his father 
died, and Tom, not coming into possession of a for- 
tune, as he anticipated, went into business. Ten 
years later, he suddenly sold out his interest in the 
house where he had been the youngest partner, and 
went to Calcutta, where he entered the India trade. 

Young Apthorp was a little over thirty at that 
time, and his sister Evelyn, his only living relative, 
a good many years his junior, had just married her 
brother’s old classmate. 

Tom had left his native land a disappointed and 
rather embittered man. The woman whom he loved 
had failed him at the last, sacrificing herself to the 
ambitions of her family, and wedding a richer suitor. 
Tom felt, with good reason, that the older members 
of his firm had not sufficiently regarded his interests, 
and he made up his mind to “ burn his ships behind 
him, and challenge his Fate in a foreign land.” 

In less than five years Tom Apthorp heard of his 


222 


LENOX DARE. 


sister’s death, and a little later of his brother-in- 
law’s. Evelyn’s loss was a great blow to him ; he 
had been extremely fond of her. Young Dare, too, had 
been more to him than any other man in the world. 
With their deaths he lost all inclination for a speedy 
visit to his native shores. He meant to return some- 
time, of course, and see Evelyn’s little orphan 
daughter — his only living relative — but there was 
always some good reason why he should postpone 
the long journey to a more favorable time. His 
business held him. The years slipped rapidly 
away. The indolence, superinduced by the climate 
and luxurious habits, grew on him. He became 
ambitious to build up a great fortune ; not that he 
was avaricious — he was too generous and kindly - 
souled to be that — but the pursuit of wealth had 
its fascinations for him. 

Meanwhile, he had no idea of the condition of his 
orphan niece. Had he known the real state of affairs 
Tom Apthorp would have hastened to the ends of the 
earth to find her. But he had the impression that 
the child was tenderly sheltered in the home of her 
father’s relatives. He knew she had gone to these 
when her parents died. It never crossed the man’s 
mind that Evelyn’s orphan daughter might need his 
care or his money. He took for granted that the 
child had inherited a comfortable fortune from her 
father. He contented himself with writing home 
several times, but his letters went wrong. For more 
than half a score of years Tom Apthorp had said 
to himself, “I must get off to America next year, 
and hunt up my poor Evelyn’s little girl !” 


TOM APTHOKP. 


223 


At last one of the fevers of the climate seized him 
— brought him to the borders of the grave. In the 
slow, weary convalescence which followed, the scenes 
and faces of his boyhood and youth rose, fresh and 
vivid, as though they belonged to yesterday ; and the 
face that came oftenest, and lingered longest, was 
that of the beautiful, dead sister, who had been the 
idol of Tom Apthorp’s youth. 

He was a boy again — this man whose prime of life 
was slipping from him in that gorgeous, luxurious 
life of the Indies ; he was in the happy old home, in 
the pleasant New England town; he was chasing 
Evelyn’s bright face through the old rooms ; he heard 
once more the ring of her joyous laughter ; he was 
walking with her in the old, tree-shaded garden, 
while she bloomed into lovely maidenhood, and he 
was telling her stories of his college life, and she 
was listening in eager sympathy to the hopes and 
dreams of his opening manhood. 

Tom Apthorp realized for the first time in his life 
that he was a lonely man. His fortune, his many 
friends — for he was extremely popular in the foreign 
society of Calcutta — could not disguise that fact. 

In this mood, his thoughts naturally reverted to the 
orphan child of his dead sister ; that young girl, the 
last of his race, the only kin he had on earth. He 
grew curious and anxious about her ; he counted up 
her birthdays, and found, to his amazement, that she 
was on the threshold of womanhood. He had always 
regarded her as the merest child. His long indiffer- 
ence to her welfare struck Tom Apthorp for the first 
time ; he saw that he had treated his dead Evelyn’s 


224 


LENOX DAKE. 


daughter, his solitary little kinswoman, with cruel 
neglect. The man’s heart and conscience awoke 
together. In the still, tropical nights, through the 
slow-wearing days, he brooded over the matter, and. 
at last he made a solemn resolution that, as soon as 
his health admitted of a sea voyage, he would sail 
for America, and see his neice. 

But while the man was laying his plans in the 
sick-room, very serious reverses had befallen his 
house in the India trade. Its old name and its high 
credit carried it through a commercial panic which 
bore down many a smaller house ; but when the worst 
was over, Tom Ap thorp saw that his dream of build- 
ing up a princely fortune would never be realized. 
It did not seem of so much consequence now as it 
did in the pride and strength of a few months before. 
His health was a good deal broken ; his physicians 
insisted on change of climate and freedom from busi- 
ness. He was still a tolerably rich man. The settle- 
ment of his affairs detained him at the East some 
time after his recovery ; but he never for an instant 
lost sight of the purpose he had formed in his ill- 
ness. 

Tom Apthorp sailed first for England, where he 
rested only a few days before he took passage for 
America. He reached New York after an absence 
of twenty-two years. He set out almost immediately 
for the old home of Colonel Marvell. Here the man 
learned tidings which filled him with dismay. For the 
first time he heard the fate of his brother-in-law’s 
fortune, of the marriage of the old man in his second 
childhood, and of his death a year afterward. So 


TOM APTHORP. 


225 


Evelyn Apthorp’s daughter had been thrown a pen- 
niless orphan upon the world ! 

Tom Apthorp set out for Cherry Hollows with 
feelings not to be envied. He had heard that Colonel 
Marvell’s housekeeper had married a second time, 
and taken the little girl with her to the home at the 
toll-gate. It was easy to imagine what her lot would 
be in the power of a narrow-souled woman, soured 
by her ill-fortunes. 

Tom Apthorp did not, however, reach Cherry 
Hollows. A few miles from the town, the man who 
was driving him across the country encountered an 
old acquaintance, a farmer, who proved to be a neigh- 
bor of the Cranes. When he learned the stranger’s 
relation to Lenox Dare he indulged in one long, 
amazed stare, and then, drawing up his team as near 
the other’s as the narrow road permitted, he began 
to talk in a high-keyed, rasping voice. 

After a good deal of long-winded gossip, he im- 
parted to his eager listener the story of Lenox’s flight, 
three years before, to Briars wild. From that time, 
he averred, the neighbors had lost sight of her, al- 
though there was a general impression that the girl’s 
fortunes had immensely bettered with her change of 
homes. 

“ Take the shortest road to Briarswild,” shouted 
the traveler to the astonished driver. 

Two hours later, Lenox’s uncle was awaiting her 
in Mrs. Mavis’s parlor. 

Mrs. Mavis and Ben could not fail to share Lenox’s 
joy. Her uncle’s advent seemed almost as marvelous 
as though one had risen from the dead. At the 


226 


LENOX DARE. 


dinner-table, where the four assembled, and did not 
rise until the summer afternoon had nearly waned, 
they heard the story of Tom Ap thorp’s long resi- 
dence at the Indies ; of his late dangerous illness, 
which had awakened in him an unappeasable long- 
ing to behold the face of his orphan niece; of the 
resolution he had formed to seek her at once, and 
of the way he had carried it out in the teeth of every 
obstacle. 

While they all listened, in breathless silence, to this 
story, Mrs. Mavis and Ben watched the play of the 
stranger’s features. Some swiftly vanishing expres- 
sion would remind them of Lenox. The family look 
was there — not always apparent, but coming to the 
surface with certain expressions, and in moments 
of deepest feeling. 

The stranger’s advent at the Mavis farm had all 
the charm and mystery of romance, not only to his 
young, impressible kinswoman, but to the more prac- 
tical nature of the woman who had mothered her, 
of the youth who was in secret her lover. 

The man’s presence, too, was an element of fresh 
life and pleasure in the household. He was familiar 
with the world ; he had a wonderful facility of mak- 
ing himself at home in any society where he was 
thrown. He always impressed strangers as no ordinary 
man. But perhaps nothing charmed his present au- 
dience quite so much as the stories he related of his 
life in the East, of that mysterious Asiatic world, 
out of which he had so lately come. There were 
times when his fascinated hearers seemed almost to 
catch the hum of thronging cities, to see the spacious 


TOM APTHORP. 


227 


streets, along which the natives glided in their loose- 
flowing, picturesque robes, and with their stealthy, 
eastern tread. 

It was no wonder he charmed his small audience. 
Tom Apthorp had, in the highest circles, a reputa- 
tion for his conversational gifts — for his powers of 
vivid, pictorial description. 

The man, in his turn, was charmed with that rest- 
ful home life among the hills. He was a good deal 
world -wearied and shaken in health. In some moods 
it seemed to him that he would be content to stay 
forever in this soft-lined home nest, and pass the 
rest of his days in dreaming indolence, like the mar- 
iners who came to anchor on the golden shores 
of the Lotus-land. 

But the lightest heart at Briarswild was, at this 
time, the youngest one. The tie of kindred was like 
a new, priceless treasure in Lenox’s life. Had not 
the heart of her childhood gone famished for lack of 
this family love, that had come to her at last from the 
ends of the earth ? The girl seemed to tread on air 
in these days ! 

Mrs. Mavis told Ben it was a real pleasure to hear 
Lenox say “ Uncle Tom.” The very name seemed 
to acquire some new, beautiful meaning on her lips. 
Then, with what kindling eyes, what tender, absorbed 
attention she hung upon his words — his very looks, 
even ! 

If Lenox had felt any shyness at the beginning, it 
soon vanished under the perfect kindliness of her 
uncle’s manner. In his own ways he drew out the 
fresh, young soul ; he gauged its capacities, he dis- 
cerned its possibilities. 


228 


LENOX DARE. 


And Lenox frolicked and sparkled about her uncle 
as though she had known hini all her life ; she plied 
him with eager questions, whose simplicity amused, 
and whose acuteness surprised him. 

To the two who watched the uncle and niece day 
by day, there was no doubt that Tom Apthorp soon 
grew immensely fond of the girl. He did not like to 
have her out of his sight, unless it might be when he 
desired to have a private talk with Mrs. Mavis or 
Ben, regarding her past. For, painful as the subject 
evidently was to him, he was still resolved to know 
all the facts of Lenox’s history ; and he drew from 
Mrs. Mavis a full recital of the way in which she 
first came to them. His remorse over that pitiful 
tale was so great that the tender-hearted woman tried 
to comfort him. 

“ Don’t attempt to excuse me, Mrs. Mavis,” he 
burst out in the middle of her speech. “ I have 
acted like a monster ! I can only say I had no idea 
what I was doing, or failing to do, all this time.” 

The man’s gratitude to Mrs. Mavis and her son 
was inexpressible. Had it not been for them he 
might have come too late, and found Lenox done to 
death by the slow torture of the factory, or an out- 
cast — he dared not finish the thought. But some- 
times the girl, looking suddenly up in his face, would 
find the piorcing gray eyes bent on her with an ex- 
pression she could not fathom. It was partly grief 
and partly tenderness. What could Uncle Tom be 
thinking about ? she wondered ; and she would go up 
to him and clasp her hands on his shoulder in a way 
that made him think of a dove’s soft wings nestling 
there* 


TOM APTHORP. 


229 


“ Uncle Tom” was at this time having thoughts 
and plans about Lenox which would have startled 
her immensely, had she in the least suspected them. 
She had become in these few days the central interest 
of the man’s life — the object about which his affec- 
tions and ambitions would in future revolve. He 
spent hours by himself in devising a brilliant pro- 
gramme for her future. He resolved that she should 
lose no opportunity for developing every gift and 
grace with which nature had endowed her. She 
should see the world, he said to himself. She 
should have every advantage which the best culture 
and the widest travel could afford her. The man 
congratulated himself that he had sufficient means to 
carry out all these projects, though he had missed the 
princely fortune which had been his dream for years. 
No doubt remorse for his previous neglect had a 
powerful influence in shaping Tom Apthorp’s plans 
for the future of the neice who had first dawned on 
him a great surprise, and who had soon become the 
priceless treasure of his heart. 

The consciousness that he had failed her through 
so many critical years, must always rankle in the 
breast of the proud man. But he found some con- 
solation in reflecting that it was not too late to make 
up for the past. Lenox’s future was all before her. 
Under his fostering care that young mind and heart 
should unfold into gracious womanhood. He saw, 
too — this critical man of the world, used to the so- 
ciety of fascinating women, of all lands — the slow- 
dawning promise of Lenox’s beauty. 

“ The splendid-eyed, graceful-limbed creature !” he 


230 


LENOX DARE. 


said to himself. “ What a beauty she is going to 
make one of these days ! It is the sort of flower that 
comes late to its perfect blossoming — it will be all 
the finer for that !” 

Two weeks from the day on which Tom Apthorp 
came to Briars wild he went with Lenox to walk in 
the orchard. She had taken him, frequently accom- 
panied by Ben Mavis, to most of her favorite haunts ; 
but this afternoon the two were alone together. The 
uncle had something to say to his niece ; he had been 
waiting for a fitting time. It seemed to have come 
now. 

They reached the ancient apple-tree, by the low 
stone wall. All the way from the house Lenox had 
been talking and sparkling by the man’s side. 

“ This is my favorite corner of the old orchard,” 
she said. “ I was here with a book the mohring you 
came. I had just reached the fascinating climax of 
my story ; and I was dreadfully vexed when the girl 
brought me a message from the house. I have hardly 
glanced inside a book since you came, Uncle Tom !” 
and she glanced up, half tenderly, half-archly, in his 
face. 

He looked down fondly on the beautifully-shaped 
head, with its crown of darkly -bright hair, just above 
his shoulder. 

“ So I spoiled your book that day, did I, Lenox ? 
I’ve spoiled other books since. My dear, uncles are 
dreadfully tiresome old fellows ! You will find that 
out before long.” 

While he said this they had seated themselves on 
the low bench, among the cool, wavering shadows. 


TOM APTHORP. 


231 


“ You precious Uncle Tom!” exclaimed Lenox, 
and with a sudden impulse of the young heart, that 
overflowed toward him with love, and pride, and joy, 
she clasped her arms about his neck, and laid her 
head on his shoulder, “You are worth all the books 
in the world !” 

He understood just how great a compliment that 
was. Few things about Lenox had more surprised 
her uncle than the extent and character of her read- 
ing. 

But his look was very grave, as he answered : “ My 
poor child you have little cause to say that !” Then, 
before she could reply, he continued, “ During these 
days I have been revolving some thoughts and plans, 
about which I would not speak until they were 
quite clear to me. They concern you, Lenox — 
they involve all your future ! ” 

She looked startled, for the words were sufficiently 
impressive, and the tone made them solemn. I can- 
not here repeat Tom Ap thorp’s words ; I can only 
relate their substance, as Lenox did, long afterward. 
At that time he laid before the astonished girl the 
plans which he had so lately formed for her. What 
offers he made, what glowing pictures he painted for 
her future ! He would take her abroad with him ; he 
would show her the world ; she should see its great 
cities, its grand cathedrals, its stately palaces. They 
would visit the most famous picture-galleries, the 
sublimes t and loveliest scenery, the points of richest 
historical association in northern and southern Eu- 
rope. She should have the best masters in the lan- 
guages; she should meet the best people of every 


232 


LENOX DARE. 


land they visited. His long residence in the East 
had given him a world- wide acquaintance, and he 
had friends and influence that would give them ac- 
cess to any society. 

They would travel slowly, so as to gather the bloom 
of things wherever they sojourned. He had wealth 
enough to indulge any reasonable desire that either 
might form. There was no need of being in a hurry ; 
Lenox was young, and life was before her. He told 
her, too, in few words, but all the stronger for their 
brevity, how he would watch over her young life, 
how he would shield it from every harm, how her 
comfort and happiness should be the supreme care 
of his life. 

And all the time he was talking the leaves of the 
great apple-tree quivered overhead, and flakes of 
sunlight mottled the shadows at their feet. 

I suppose no young girl, standing where Lenox 
Dare did, just on the threshold of womanhood, could 
have listened unmoved to such words — to such 
promises as were uttered in the ancient orchard, that 
summer afternoon. 

Lenox had sat quite still, her lips parted, her breath 
hovering on them, but, as her uncle went on her soul 
thrilled, her eyes dilated, her cheeks flushed with joy- 
ful anticipation. What a future opened before her ! 
How eager she was to go out and meet it — to see 
the pride and splendor, the beauty and glory of the 
world ! 

She was about to speak when she started suddenly, 
the light which had kindled in her face went down ; 
a shadow crept into her eyes. 


TOM APTHORP. 


233 


“ But, Uncle Tom, must I leave Mrs. Mavis and 
Ben ? ” she asked. 

44 1 suppose there would be no help for that, Lenox. 
They could hardly go with us. But I give you my 
word that you shall come back and see them, when- 
ever you desire.’ , 

Lenox sat quite still after he had spoken. Her 
thoughts had suddenly gone away from that hour to 
another — it was the night when she first came to 
Briarswild. Again she stood at the gate, with breath 
panting, with whirling brain, with shaking limbs. 
Again she watched with longing eyes the light as 
it shone out from the hall, and showed her Ben 
Mavis’s figure, as he stood there and gazed up at the 
gray clouds of the summer night. Again she heard 
his first words of dismay as he recognized her — his 
swift, pitying welcome that followed. Again she saw 
his mother’s tender face as it first bent over her. 
Again she felt the touch of the soft arms as they 
closed about her. 

Lenox had, in answer to her uncle’s questions, 
fully described to him her life at Cherry Hollows, but 
she had always avoided any allusion to her last days 
at the toll-gate, or to her flight from it. 

The whole subject was so distressing that she 
dreaded, for her uncle’s sake, to approach it, while for 
her own she feared to recall that time. But Lenox 
felt assured that Mrs. Mavis had related all the 
circumstances of her first appearance at Briarswild. 
This conviction was only strengthened by the fact 
that, in all their talks together, her uncle maintained 
an absolute silence regarding the most momentous 
event of her life. 


234 


LENOX DARE. 


He, too, had been silent, watching for some time 
the delicate, half-averted face over which the shadows 
of the apple-leaves flickered. At last he leaned for- 
ward. 

“ What are you thinking about, Lenox?” he asked. 

She turned, and faced him with steady eyes. The 
flush in her cheeks had paled. What a resolute line 
had come about her mouth ! This was a side of Lenox 
her uncle had never seen before. 

“ If I were to go away, Mrs. Mavis and Ben would 
miss me,” she said. “ I know them. It would 
grieve their hearts.” 

“ But, Lenox,” said her uncle, in the kindly, rea- 
soning tone with which one might answer the rash, 
generous impulse of a child, “ do you expect to stay 
here always ? Do you mean to give up all your life 
to these people ? ” 

His question went to the quick with her. All that 
“ these people ” had been to her, all that she owed 
them, rose in a moment to Lenox Dare. An in- 
stant later she stood, with her pale face and her kind- 
ling eyes, before her uncle. At that moment she 
would have reminded one of the way she looked when 
Guy Fosdick came up to meet her in the moonlight, 
on the beach. 

“ I remember what I was when I came to them,” 
she said, and her low, shaken voice grew clearer and 
steadier as she went on. “ I was a lonely, desolate, 
broken-hearted orphan girl. In all the world I had 
no friend to succor me, no roof to shelter me ; I had 
fled from a life that was more terrible than death. 
And they ” — there was a little pause, a sob in her 


TOM APTHORP. 


235 


throat, but she mastered it — “they took me at once 
into their home, into their hearts. They showed me 
what a mother’s love could mean, what a brother’s 
care could be ! Think what they have done for me in 
all these years ! Think where, had it not been for 
them, you might have come at last to find me ! Oh, 
Uncle Tom, I was your dead sister’s orphan girl, the 
last of your kin, and you forgot me ! You left me to 
the cold charity, to the harshness and cruelty of 
strangers. You knew what the world could be to 
such as I left all alone in it ! If you had come sooner, 
Uncle Tom, I would have gone with you to the ends 
of ^the earth, but you have found me too late. I 
thank you, from my heart, for all your splendid offers, 
but if you gave me the whole world I could not take 
it now — I could not go away from Mrs. Mavis and 
Ben ! ” 

There were times when Lenox Dare’s face had the 
look of her mother. This was one of them. She 
had scarcely known what she said. In the midst of 
the awful memories, and the passion of gratitude 
which possessed her, her words had been like a cry 
forced from her heart to her lips. In her moments 
of strongest feeling there was a grand power in this 
young girl. We have seen the effect it had on Guy 
Fosdick ; how it had penetrated through all his pride 
and self-conceit, to some courage and manliness at 
bottom ; how it had made him cast to the winds the 
beliefs and ambitions of a life, and worked a change 
in him that was almost a miracle. 

Lenox's power, at these rare moments, was due, 
partly, to the intensity of the feelings and convictions 


286 


LENOX DARE. 


which mastered her. Her pale, young face, her 
solemn tones, made her seem almost like a sorrowful, 
accusing angel. 

But Tom Apthorp felt at that moment as though 
his dead sister stood before him. He saw her eyes, 
he heard her reproachful tones in her child’s. His 
lips trembled ; he was a proud man, he covered his 
face with his hands. 

The next moment Lenox’s arms were around his 
neck. 

44 Oh, uncle, what have I said ! I didn’t mean to ac- 
cuse you ! ” she exclaimed. 

In a moment he lifted his head. His keen, gray 
eyes gazed at her with a tenderness, touched with re- 
morse, that hurt her. 

44 Don’t reproach yourself, my child ! ” he said. 
44 You have only spoken the truth.” 

44 1 had no right to say what I did, Uncle Tom. 
It seemed to come of itself.” 

44 1 know that, my child. Do you suppose my con- 
science has not said all you did to me ? Do you sup- 
pose that the consciousness of my long failure toward 
you will not rankle to my latest hour ? ” 

She looked shocked at that. She would have tried 
to comfort him ; but he was not the sort of man to 
make that easy. While she sat quite silent, he rose, 
bent down, kissed her forehead tenderly, and then, 
without speaking a word, he w r ent away and left her 
in the summer afternoon, under the shadows of the 
old apple tree. 

Those who knew Tom Apthorp were aware that he 
seldom gave up a matter on which he had set his 


TOM APTHORP. 


237 


heart. He made, in his niece’s hearing, no further 
allusion to the plans he had formed for her future, 
but he did not in the least relinquish them. He was 
perhaps more bent on carrying them out, after their 
talk in the orchard. So far as possible, he told him- 
self, he would make up for his failure in the past. 
He would prove to his niece, to himself, that he 
had not come too late to make her womanhood 
something gladder and richer than it could ever 
have been without him. This became the fixed de- 
termination, the central passion of the man. As he 
revolved his plans, he saw the important aid that Mrs. 
Mavis and her son could render him at this crisis. 
If he took them into his confidence, if he once se- 
cured their influence on his side, he did not doubt that 
Lenox could, in the end, be prevailed on to yield to 
his wishes. He felt confident, too, that he could set 
these in such a light — he could show so clearly their 
bearing on his niece’s future — that her friends would 
give their consent to the separation, whatever pain 
it might cost them. He made up his mind to broach 
the subject first to young Mavis. 

Lenox’s uncle had expressed much pleasure at 
the perfect way in which she managed her horse. 
This was largely due, as we have seen, to young 
Mavis’s training. When the elder man learned 
the share Dainty had borne in his niece’s fortunes, he 
never let a day go by without visiting the stall, where 
the creature soonTearned to recognize his step, almost 
as quickly as she did that of her young mistress. 

Late one afternoon, Ben Mavis, alighting from his 
horse at the stable door, met Lenox’s uncle. They 


238 


LENOX DARE. 


went up toward the house together. As they reached 
the gate which opened from the large garden into the 
hack yard Mr. Apthorp touched Ben’s arm. 

“ Let us go back,” he said. “ I want to have a pri- 
vate talk with you.” 

It was singular that young Mavis felt, at that mo- 
ment, a secret reluctance to turning back, as though 
something disagreeable awaited him ; but he could 
not refuse the other’s request. The path, heavily 
bordered on either side with currant and raspberry 
bushes, stretched long and straight before them. The 
sun was going down over the distant hills. To this 
day Ben remembers that flock of orange-clouds 
rimmed with flame, and that he braced himself, as a 
man might who expects a blow. 

Young Mavis had, from the first, an instinct 
that the appearance of Lenox’s uncle boded him no 
good. He had tried to rid himself of this feeling. 
The two men had been thrown a great deal together, 
and Ben had yielded to the charm of the elder man’s 
society. Lenox’s uncle had the most cordial liking 
for the young fellow, apart from any grateful sense 
of all he owed to him. 

Ben Mavis was such a manly, generous-hearted 
fellow ; he had such keen humor, with such sturdy 
good sense, that it was impossible not to feel drawn 
toward him. Yet, if Tom Apthorp had had the 
faintest idea to what test he was about to put that 
brave, young soul, he would not have talked as he did 
in the shadowy, fruit-scented old garden. The elder 
man linked his arm in the younger’s. 

“ My dear young Mavis,” he began, “ I am going 


TOM APTHORP. 


239 


to take you into my confidence — to tell you of a 
plan on which I have set my heart, but which I shall 
never attempt to carry out unless I have your assent 
— the promise, indeed, of your hearty co-operation.” 

“ I shall be glad to serve you, Mr. Apthorp,” an- 
swered Ben, looking at the man with his clear, hon- 
est eyes. “ But I am wholly in the dark as to your 
meaning.” 

In the next half hour Ben knew. When he first 
caught sight of the other’s drift, his heart gave a 
single bound, and then sank like lead. The elder had 
all the talking to himself. He laid open his whole 
plans regarding his niece ; he showed their immense 
importance to all her future ; he related the scene 
which had occurred three days before in the orchard, 
and he concluded : “ My dear fellow, you see now I 
am at a standstill. I shall never move another step 
in this matter unless you consent to help me. It 
would be hopeless for me to attempt to shake 
Lenox’s determination not to leave you. Indeed, I 
have neither the heart nor the will to do that. I 
would not, if I could, take her away without your 
consent, and your mother’s. You have a far higher 
right in her than any I can lay claim to. What is our 
tie of kindred but a perpetual reproach to me ! ” And 
he spoke now with exceeding bitterness, and ground 
his heel into the gravel. 

Ben looked off at the sun hanging just above the 
pines, on the crest of the distant hill. It seemed as 
though a cold shudder had passed over all the pleasant 
landscape. He could not at once bring himself to re- 
flect on the consequences of what Mr. Apthorp pro-. 


240 


LENOX DARE. 


posed. What would the days be — what the home — 
the world itself, if Lenox were to go away from 
them ? 

But he put that thought away, with a kind of blind 
instinct that he must conceal his real feeling from this 
man, and he answered almost at random : “ It will 
hurt my mother cruelly to part with Lenox.” 

“ I am certain of that, Ben,” answered Mr. Ap- 
thorp. “ I have gone over the whole ground many 
times. That explains my coming to you now. You 
know your influence oyer your mother — her faith in 
your judgment. If you were first to broach the sub- 
ject, if you brought her to look at the matter in the 
light of its advantages to Lenox, you might prevail 
upon her to consent to a temporary separation.” 

Ben was silent. He knew his mother’s heart. 

“ You see how the matter stands now, my dear fel- 
low,” Mr. Apthorp continued in a moment or two. 
“ I leave it entirely in your hands. Lenox’s fate 
rests now w r ith you. I give you my word I shall never 
attempt to take her from Briars wild without your 
hearty co-operation.” 

At that moment the supper-bell rang. It was a re- 
lief to Ben. 

“ Give me a little time to think this over, Mr. Ap- 
thorp,” he said, and the two men turned and went up 
to the house together. 

The night which followed dragged its slow, wake- 
ful hours over young Mavis. Through all the long 
watches those words of Lenox’s uncle kept repeating 
themselves, like the endless ticking of a clock, like the 
regular fall of waves on a beach — “ Her fate rests in 
your hands ! ” 


TOM APTHORP. 


241 


Could he let her go out of his life, he asked him- 
self, just as he had learned she was the center of all 
its hopes and joys ! What would the mornings be 
without the sound of her voice — what the long 
days — what the drearier evenings? For he loved 
Lenox Dare — this brave young fellow — with all the 
pure passion and all the loyal strength of his young 
manhood. And it was the heart of the lover which 
spoke now, which pleaded for its dearest life. 

But the heart of the lover could not warp the na- 
tive good sense of the man. Ben saw perfectly all 
the benefit Lenox would derive from going abroad 
with her uncle. The time had come when it would 
be- vastly for her interest to leave Briarswild. 

Ben’s love made him, at this time, keen to forecast 
the future. He was honest enough, generous enough, 
too, to admit all that side of Lenox’s nature which 
was unlike his own. If she went out into the world, 
if she enjoyed all its finest opportunities for culture, 
if she saw its choicest society, if she met its grand 
men — men of noble intellect and polished manners 
— would not she, so keenly alive to all goodness and 
beaut}% be impressed and charmed ? Would not her 
standards change, her tastes become exacting ? Would 
not he suffer by the contrast — he, a very common- 
place fellow at best, brought up in a backwoods 
town ? 

But here the pride, the sturdy self-respect of the 
young fellow, made itself felt through the lover’s 
jealous fears. Was he fallen so low as that ? he asked. 
Could he bring himself to hold back the woman of 
his love from the best and highest, because, seeing 


242 


LENOX DARE. 


these for herself, he feared she might not choose him 
above all men? Would not Lenox’s presence at 
Briarswild be hereafter a thing not to be borne — a 
perpetual reminder of his selfishness ? 

So his passion and his pride pleaded alternately. 
So they pleaded for days and nights that followed. 
And all the time Mr. Ap thorp’s speech about Lenox’s 
fate resting in his hands, haunted the air and sad- 
dened the summer days. He was so grave that Lenox 
rallied him at times on his seriousness ; and his mother, 
looking at him with puzzled eyes, would ask : “ What 
has got into you, Ben ? ” 

Then he would rouse himself, and be witty and gay, 
as they had hardly ever known him. Nobody sus- 
pected the struggle that was going on in the brave 
young soul. 

Tom Apthorp, man of the world, reader of men as 
he was, was as thoroughly deceived as the others. 
He would, no doubt, have desired a more ambitious 
marriage for his niece ; but had he seen that the 
young people were sincerely attached to each other, 
he would not have opposed their union. In his re- 
morse, he would have told himself that justice de- 
manded of his pride this penalty for his long 
neglect. He saw, too, that, young Mavis was no com- 
mon man. He had already, in a way, grown fond of 
him. 

Lenox’s uncle was, however, gratified that matters 
stood as they did between the young people. He 
knew that Lenox’s frank, grateful affection for Ben 
Mavis was not that of a maiden for her lover. 

Several days passed — the hardest that had ever 


TOM APTHORP. 


' 243 


fallen into the young man’s smooth, prosperous life. 
Yet one who knew him thoroughly would have had 
little doubt of the decision to which he would come 
at last. 

One afternoon, when Mr. Apthorp and his niece 
had gone out for a drive, Ben Mavis went into his 
mother’s room. To this day, neither could tell how 
Ben first introduced the subject of Lenox’s going 
abroad. But the young man remembered for years 
his mother’s look when the first inkling of his drift 
broke on her. 

“ O, Ben, Ben,” she cried out, sharply, “ do you 
mean to say that the man wants to take our little girl 
away from us — that he has dared to speak of such a 
thing ! ” 

“ But, mother,” answered Ben, “ you are a reason- 
able woman. If her uncle can do for Lenox some- 
thing that we never can — something that will make 
all her future life larger and happier — ought we to 
stand in the way ? Ought we to keep her here ? ” 

“ What can he do for Lenox Dare that we cannot 
do as well, or better? ” asked Mrs. Mavis, in a half- 
vexed, half-defiant voice, very unlike her usual chir- 
rupy one. 

Then Ben related the interview in the garden. He 
dwelt on the splendid opportunities which had been 
offered to Lenox, and which, if she persisted in re- 
fusing them, would be a matter of life-long regret to 
her. He showed his mother that the responsibility 
of the girl’s fate rested with them alone. The poor 
fellow pleaded the more earnestly because his heart 
was not in the matter. 


244 


LENOX DARE. 


Mrs. Mavis was not convinced in a single talk ; but 
Ben’s arguments had their weight. Other talks fol- 
lowed. Taught by sharp experience, the young man 
said to himself: “ The worst will be in making up her 
mind to it.” 

One day, after dinner, Mr. Apthorp sat reading his 
paper on the piazza, when young Mavis came out to 
him and said : “I have done what I could. My 
mother has promised me nothing. But she will listen 
now to anything you may choose to say.” 

Mr. Apthorp acted at once on Ben’s suggestion. 
He and Mrs. Mavis had a long, private talk that af- 
ternoon. Other talks followed. The result was easy 
to foresee. Nobody could question the immense ad- 
vantage which Lenox would derive from the plans 
which Mr. Apthorp so adroitly laid before his hostess. 
He fervently repeated his assurance that he should 
never move in the matter he had so much at heart 
unless her friends promised him their entire co-opera- 
tion. Their claims, as his niece had told him in the 
orchard, were supreme. 

“ Claims ! ” he repeated, in a bitter tone. “What 
of those had he to make in the face of his long fail- 
ure toward the girl?” 

Mr. Apthorp gained his point. Mrs. Mavis gave 
her consent to the separation. From that moment, 
as Ben had foreseen, the worst was over ; and her 
generous soul found a real satisfaction in contemplat- 
ing the grand future that lay before Lenox. 

All this time the young girl had no idea that her 
fate was hanging in the balance. The talk in the or- 
chard had never again been alluded to by either her- 


TOM APTHORP. 


245 


self or her uncle. She never for a moment regretted 
her decision. But her uncle’s magnificent offer could 
not fail to dazzle her imagination. It was impossible 
for her not to dwell sometimes on all she had put 
away from her that summer afternoon. 

The time came to speak, at last. Mrs. Mavis opened 
the subject ; but Ben was there to second her argu- 
ments. In requesting his presence, at this juncture, 
Mrs. Mavis had no idea of the cruel pain to which 
she was subjecting the brave fellow. Had she known 
the truth, she would have plunged her right hand in 
the fire sooner than allow Lenox Dare to leave Briars- 
wild. 

When Mrs. Mavis first spoke, Lenox started, and 
looked wildly from mother to son. 

“Has Uncle Tom told you anything?” she burst 
out. 

“ Everything, Lenox,” answered Mrs. Mavis. “We 
know all about the plans he has formed for you — all 
about your talk in the orchard ! ” 

“ And are you willing to have me go away from 
you ? ” she asked, with surprise and reproach in her 
voice. 

It was Ben’s turn to speak now. He rose and 
stood before her. 

“ Lenox,” he said, and his voice was steady, 
and his eyes, calm and searching, looked in her face, 
“ if my mother and I were quite out of the ques- 
tion — if we were out of the world, for instance 
— what would you say to this grand offer of your 
uncle’s ? ” 

There was a pause. He saw the sudden light that 


246 


LENOX DARE. 


flashed in her eyes. Mrs. Mavis saw it, too. Lenox 
had answered before she had spoken. 

“ But you are in the world ! You are the dearest 
friends I have in it. I will not leave you for any- 
thing it can offer me ! ” 

But her look before her words had settled Ben’s 
last doubt. In the talk that followed, he fully sus- 
tained his mother. He sometimes took the words 
from her lips, and set her arguments before Lenox in 
his calmer man’s fashion. 

Here, again, the end could easily be foreseen. 
When the talk was finished, Ben, by a pre-arranged 
signal, summoned Mr. Apthorp to the conference. 
As he entered the room, Lenox went up to him ; her 
cheeks were flushed, the tears were in her eyes ; but 
a great light shone through them. She laid her hands 
on his shoulder. 

“ Uncle Tom,” she said, “ they will have it so. I 
am going to Europe with you ! ” 

A fortnight of hurried preparations followed. 
Lenox was very busy, and for the most part very 
happy, in these days. She made farewell visits to all 
the old haunts, with her uncle or Ben Mavis — some- 
times with both of them. 

But the days' that went swifter than a weaver’s 
shuttle to all the others dragged slowly to the 
young man. Now that the wrench must come, he 
longed to have it over. He laid a terrible task 
upon heart and soul at this time; but he bore 
himself so that neither the mother, who idolized 
him, or the keen-sighted man who spent hours 
every day in his society, dreamed of what lay at 
the heart of things for Ben Mavis. 


TOM APTHORP. 


247 


The four went* to New York together. It was 
in early September. The}* spent a week seeing 
whatever was worth seeing in the great city ; 
then Mr. Apthorp and his niece sailed for Eu- 
rope. 

Mrs. Mavis and Ben went to the steamer with them. 
That was the last of the young man’s long, cruel 
test. Lenox clung, sobbing, to Mrs. Mavis, at the 
last moment. 

“ I shall come back in a year,” she said. 

Ben doubted that. So did Mr. Apthorp. But the 
man had solemnly promised that whenever her friends 
summoned her, Lenox should take the next steamer 
for America. 

The mother and son watched from the pier the 
great vessel, as she passed slowly out of sight. Lenox 
stood on the deck by her uncle’s side, and waved her 
last farewells to them. 

You and I, reader, will stand also, for a mo- 
ment, and watch her — the little girl whom we met 
first at Cherry Hollows’ Glen. How like a fairy- 
tale the changed fortunes seem ! Beyond those blue, 
dancing waves the old world awaits her. She will 
see all its glorious treasures, its grandest and loveliest 
scenes. The wisest care will enwrap her life, the 
most doting love will encircle her wherever she 
moves. No wonder her young soul, amid all its 
grief at parting, leaps at the thought of the land 
she goes to, while her native shores fade dim and 
gray in the distance. 

And with the great steamer, Lenox Dare fades 
for awhile from our view. Her life has passed now 


248 


LENOX DARE. 


beyond the “ turning of the roads.” When we 
meet her again she will know what the years and 
the world have taught her — she will be, with 
God’s grace, what the years and the world have made 
her. 


CHAPTER XV. 


IN THE LIBRARY. 



OBERT BERESFORD sat writing in his li- 


JL\- brary. On his left the oriel-window was 
open, and outside the May morning shone amid its 
fresh-leaved green — its fragrant bloom. It must 
have been such a morning when Lancelot “ returned 
among the flowers” with Guinevere, and King Arthur 
led her to their ill-starred bridal, while 


“ All the world was white with May.” 


Some fancies of this sort had flashed across the 
mind of the occupant of the library, as he stood, for 
a few minutes, watching the light and shade — the 
vivid green, the pink and white bloom, before he turned 
from the window and buried himself in a heap of 
business letters that awaited him on the table. He 
smiled a little as he sat down, thinking about his 
next hour’s work, and how wide of that mark went 
any romancing about May mornings and mythic 
bridals ; but he was soon as deeply engrossed with 
his writing as though Robert Beresford were, at 
bottom, neither artist nor poet. 

It was now more than eight years since, in that 
very room, he had faced the great question of his 
life, and made the choice which determined his 


249 


250 


LENOX DARE. 


future. The room itself had, in these years, 
undergone a greater change than its occupant. It 
had quite lost its character of an artist’s studio, al- 
though some of the old pictures, and some precious 
studies in oils and water-colors, still held their places 
on the walls. But there was little now in the cool, 
gray tones of the room, in the carved bookcases, the 
heavy writing-table and the handsome furnishings, to 
suggest the old picturesque effects of light and shade, 
and masses of gorgeous color. The artist’s studio 
had disappeared in the modern library. Its mistress, 
however, still persisted in calling it a studio. The 
name had, to her husband, a half-pleasant, half-pa- 
thetic association. It was linked with the dearest 
hopes and aspirations of his youth. His wife’s in- 
stinct had failed her in one instance. During 
all these years Stacey never suspected what a 
price her husband had paid for the ease and luxury 
in which her life was nested. 

Robert Beresford had done his work steadily, 
manfully. He had come to be regarded as the in- 
spiring brain of his special department of the great, 
iron firm. He devoted to it all his best hours, his 
clearest thoughts, his strongest energies. Other 
prizes may have awaited him in totally different 
fields ; but this work had its satisfactions, ample 
enough to make him wonder over them, to often 
question whether they would not have been less had 
nature originally intended him for an artist. 

Josiah Wentworth — the head partner, on whom 
these last years had been telling heavily — never 
ceased to secretly plume himself on his “ snapping 


IN THE LIBRARY. 


251 


np young Beresford in the nick of time — making 
a capital business-man out of what would have been 
wasted in life-long dawdling over his pictures.” 

Robert Beresford had entered into business at a 
time when mind and habits were elastic enough to 
take some new bent from the influences about him. 
In certain directions the new sphere had proved a 
great training-school for mind and heart. He was 
beginning to realize this himself, as the years length- 
ened their perspective behind him. Partner in the 
great house whose vast industries and wide relations 
made it a power in the business world, he was brought 
in contact with all varieties of human nature. He 
learned much which it is well for a man to know, 
but which no studio can ever teach him. 

The firm owned large mining districts in the west- 
ern part of Pennsylvania. Hundreds of workmen 
were employed in the mines and at the foundries. 
The majority were rough, ignorant, more or less brutal, 
their passions easily roused into a frenzy of rage and 
hatred. There were crises when it was no easy mat- 
ter to deal with such characters. Those in authori- 
ty had to be on the alert for the first signs of mutiny, 
for riots in the mines, and rebellion in the workshops. 

It was not long before the senior members of the 
firm discovered that young Beresford had a wonder- 
ful knack in dealing with the hands. Nobody could 
allay a storm of rising passion, could put down the 
beginnings of mutiny, with the readiness, the nerve, 
the tact, that the youngest partner displayed. His 
popularity with the men was always more or less a 
mystery to his associates. They thought it was 


252 


LENOX DARE. 


largely due to his handsome presence, his grace of 
manner, and to a certain happy tact for managing his 
inferiors. 

The brawny-limbed, grimy-faced workmen knew 
better. 

“ ’Taint handsome looks, and fine manners, and 
’ily words as could go down with this chap !” said 
one of their number, a leather-skinned, huge-fisted 
giant, with a beard that flamed like that of Chaucer’s 
Miller, as he addressed a small knot of workmen 
hanging around the steps of a lager-beer shop. “ But 
the young boss, when he’s sa} r s anything, has a way 
of goin’ to the quick ; he puts the heart right inter 
a feller ; makes him feel that ole clo’es, and rough 
times, and hard work needn’t keep him down in the 
mire, if he’s jest got the pluck to stand up and be a 
man !” 

A deep, gruff chorus of approval followed this 
speech. A dozen clay pipes were waved in the sum- 
mer-evening air, which was scented with vile tobacco. 
The red-bearded, huge-fisted workman had hit the 
mark, where his betters had failed. 

To Robert Beresford the gangs of employees were 
something more than hirelings and machines. He 
could never lose sight of the bond of a common hu- 
manity between himself and the lowest and worst of 
the hands. They, too, were men, in the midst of 
life’s sorrows, and struggles, and bewilderments — 
over them, too, arched the sky of eternal hope — be- 
neath them, too, waited the green earth, with the 
blessed silence and healing of the grave. 

Thoughts like these made young Beresford’s strong 


IN THE LIBRARY. 


253 


heart tender when he met the men in his office, among 
the workshops, or in the mines. It made his speech 
kindly, and his bearing courteous toward them, as man 
to brother man. And the swift, sure instincts of 
the hands taught them that he was their friend. 
They knew it — at times they secretly half resented 
the knowledge. For discontent and obstinacy, and 
all evil moods, would come to a head sometimes ; and 
the men, spurred on by vicious ringleaders, would 
be on the' point of breaking into open revolt. Then 
young Beresford had to show the disaffected and mu- 
tinous another side of himself — had to prove to 
them who was master. 

The man who sat writing that May morning in 
his library, was the Robert Beresford of old. His 
ideals were a part of himself. In the wear and tear 
of life they had not grown dimmed. If the workmen 
had learned some things from him, they had taught 
him others, which he never could have learned in a 
finer school. He had seen what noble hearts could 
throb, what beautiful virtues could thrive under 
coarse speech and rugged faces. At the mines, in the 
foundries, men toiled daily, who would, if need were, 
have died for him. 

There was a sudden rustle of woman’s garments 
outside, and the next moment a lady stood at the 
side-door which opened from the library on the 
piazza. Something arrested her on the threshold, 
for she suddenly stood still, with wide, startled eyes. 
Against one of the panes of the oriel-window hung 
a little oval of stained glass; a beautiful bit of me- 
dieval work which Robert Beresford had picked up 


254 


LENOX DARE. 


long ago, in some old castle on the Rhine. The 
light flashed through the stained glass, and fell upon 
the man’s head, and made a glory there, of violet and 
gold. The soft, tremulous rays quivered among the 
thick locks, and seemed, to the eyes of the woman 
gazing there, a fitting crown for the spirited, beauti- 
ful head. This had still the grace of its youth, still, 
in some subtle, indescribable way, suggested Apollo 
and the morning. 

It is a nobler face, although it looks only a little 
older than the one we first met in Cherry Hollows’ 
Glen. The years have touched it with some finer 
expression, some added strength and manliness, but 
there is little other change, even in the tawny brown 
beard, or in the locks where that wonderful aureole 
is lying. 

The woman, too, standing in the doorway, her 
eyes full of proud, tender light, is not less fair than 
when she stood there in her bridal loveliness. No 
doubt the content at her heart has had its share in 
keeping the light in Stacey Beresford’s ej’es, the 
youth in her face. For the married life of this pair 
has never suffered the sad disenchantment that so 
many wedded lives do. Robert Beresford is still, in 
his wife’s eyes, all, and more than the lover of her 
girlhood. To him she is still the maiden of his 
young manhood’s wooing, the one woman, sacred and 
set apart, to be sheltered from every harsh wind 
of life, by his strong arm, in his manly heart. 

No doubt Stacey Beresford was dearer to her hus- 
band because of all he had sacrificed for her. It 
was the good fortune of the pair, too, that, thus far, 


IN THE LIBRARY. 


255 


no dissimilar tastes had made, at times, a chilling sense 
of separateness in their lives. Stacey’s grace, beauty, 
and wit still charmed, as they had gone far to win, 
the artist temperament of her husband. 

The woman stood still in the doorway, and the 
man wrote on in the silence, and the glory of the 
stained glass shone like a nimbus in his hair. Stacey 
Beresford’s thoughts were busy within her. They 
glanced over her married life, they went far back to 
the days of her young love. She thought of all the 
man, sitting there, had been to her, of all that was 
splendid and lovable in him, which his wife knew 
better than those who most loved and admired him. 
In the midst of these thoughts a new idea struck 
her. It came so suddenly, she seized it so eagerly, 
that she started a little. The man at the table 
caught the slight movement ; he looked up, and 
saw his wife standing there, as she had been standing 
for the last two minutes. 

She made a lovely vision in that doorway, as she 
had, years before, when the sight of her helped him 
to decide the most momentous question of his life. 
She was dressed now for a drive, and her dainty hat, 
and her elegant spring costume, became her exqui- 
sitely. 

Before Robert Beresford could speak, his wife 
came up to him. 

“ Don’t move, Robert !” she said, hastily. “That 
wonderful light surrounds your head like a nimbus 
— it crowns you like a king !” 

“ What in the world are you talking about, 
Stacey ?” 


256 


LENOX DARE. 


“About that light from the stained glass in the 
window. If you could only see the rays quivering 
and glancing in your hair ! They held me like 
a spell, on the threshold, when I was coming in to say 
good-bye, before driving off.” 

“ How long had you been there, and I writing 
on, stupid and oblivious ?” 

“ Less than two minutes, I think. Do you 
want to know what I thought, standing there and 
watching you, with that lovely aureole in your 
hair ?” 

“ I shall be delighted to know.” 

“ That the rays had found the right place — the 
one fitting head to crown !” 

The man laughed gaily to hide some deeper feel- 
ing. 

“ It is lucky for the peace of other husbands that 
their wives would not agree with you, Stacey.” 

“ Other husbands !” echoed the lady, half archly, 
half-contemptuousl}\ “ As though the crown and 
flower of them were to be named with you, Robert 
Beresford !” 

“ Stacey, what stuff are you talking ? Crowns and 
aureoles indeed ! It isn’t safe to flatter any man in 
that fashion. The whole sex are vain rascals at 
bottom !” 

The lady laughed merrily. Then she glanced at 
the loose pile of letters on the table. “ Are you 
nearly through with those tiresome things, Robert ?” 
she asked. 

He read the wish that was at the bottom of the 
question. 


IN THE LIBRARY. 


257 


“No, my dear, they will keep me steadily at work 
until noon, so it is hopeless for me to think of ac- 
companying you. But you will take Phil along ?” 

“ Oh, yes ; it is his birthday, you remember ; and 
he is half-wild at the prospect of going into Boston, 
and having the toy sail-boat I promised him.” 

“ I remember my own idols at his age, and can 
sympathize with him. But, Stacey, the wonder with 
me, all the time, is, that I see you stand there, the 
mother of my boy, seven years old ! It seems only 
yesterday since I brought you here,” and as he said 
these words, Robert Beresford looked at his wife, with 
the look that had been in his eyes when he wooed her. 

The sight brought back the thought which had 
struck her in the doorway. 

“ It is Philip’s birthday,” she said, speaking with 
sudden seriousness. “Do you know what always 
comes a month after that, Robert?” 

“You must mean the anniversary of our marriage, 
Stacey ?” 

“ Yes, and I want to choose your gift to me, this 
time. It flashed across me while I stood watching 
you just now. Will you promise to give me what 
I am going to ask for, Robert?” 

“ How serious you look, Stacey ! What is that 
thing 

* That shall not be my offer — not thy asking ?’” 

She drew a little nearer to his side. She laid 
her hand on his. 

“ Robert,” she said, “ I want you should paint me 
a picture for our next anniversary !” 

“ Paint you a picture, Stacey !” repeated the man, 


258 


LENOX DARE. 


and something came and went swiftly in his face. 
His wife could have no idea where her light words 
had struck. She went on : “ Yes, Robert, dear. I 
have set my heart on this matter. No other present 
could have a tenth part of the value in my eyes. 
This, I ask for, would be a part of yourself. Then 
I do not want you to give up your pictures, as you 
have been doing all these years. The man whom I 
married was an artist !” 

Did she see something in his eyes at that moment 
that made her add : “I more than half believe he 
would be one now if it were not for me and the 
boy ? To think you never painted anything for me 
in your life, Robert !” 

As she said these words, that old morning in 
Cherry Hollows’ Glen rose up to him. He had not 
thought of it for years. 

“ I tried to paint you a picture once, Stacey, you 
remember, and it came to grief ! ” 

“ Oh, yes, and how much it had to do with our 
engagement ! Robert, will you promise that I shall 
have the picture ?” 

Robert Beresford glanced toward the closet where, 
for ten years, his neglected easel had stood. He 
might have returned to it at times. He had not 
buried heart and soul in his business. He had wide 
leisures for reading and varied studies — leisures of 
which he made the most. But his high sense of 
honor had always held him sternly to the covenant 
he had made with the elder Wentworth. He feared 
lest, if he plunged into the old work, it would prove 
too intoxicating for him. He was a business man ; 


IN THE LIBRARY. 


259 


he dared not trust himself with colors and can- 
vases. 

And now it was Stacey — the woman for whose 
sake he had sacrificed so much — who urged him" to 
resume the old work ! It was not, however, fear of 
himself which made him hesitate, before he answered. 

“ I shall be quite busy for the next month, Stacey ; 
I may not be able to finish anything for our anni- 
versary.” 

“ No matter whether it is finished or not,” rejoined 
Stacey, with the air of a charming woman,, accus- 
tomed to have her wishes indulged. “ If you begin 
the picture on that day I shall be quite satisfied. 
Only promise that I shall have it !” 

Robert Beresford looked in his wife’s eyes. Some- 
thing tender and solemn in his own awed her a little, 
as he said : “ I promise you, Stacey.” 

At that moment a beautiful child, breathless with 
haste and eagerness, burst into the room. Chestnut 
curls clustered thick around the small head, and his 
dancing eyes had his mother’s rare violet shade. 

“ Papa — mamma,” he panted, “ the carriage is at 
the door ! It is time to go.” 

The parents watched the little, restless figure, in its 
fresh suit of gray, surmounted with a bit of tasseled 
cap. 

“ Come here, and tell me where you are going, you 
small rogue!” said his father. 

The boy came over to the man’s side. He lifted 
his eager, grave face to his father’s. 

“It is Philip’s birthday,” he said, in his sweet, 
childish treble. “ We are going into Boston to buy 


260 


LENOX DAKE. 


a sail-boat, so big,” and he stretched his arms to 
their widest. 

“ And what will you do with the sail-boat when 
you get it ?” demanded his father. 

“ Philip is going to sail all around the world. He 
is going to hunt for lions in the big forests, and for 
camels in the gray deserts. He is going to find par- 
rots with green wings and red spots for mamma, and 
a striped zebra, and a great white elephant for papa !” 

The violet eyes danced. It was all real to the 
speaker. 

“ Ah, Philip,” said his father, regarding the child 
with an expression half-serious, half-amused, “ at seven 
every boy is a poet. I should like to see with your 
eyes, to believe with your faith, this blessed moment. 
There is a heavy balance of birthdays on my side. 
I wonder if that gives me any solid advantage over 
you !” 

Philip always treated his father’s philosophizing with 
superb indifference. 

“ The ponies are waiting ! ” he again shouted im- 
patiently, as he scampered toward the door. 

Stacey turned also, and then her husband rose, 
seized his cap, and followed the two ! 

In the drive stood a small phaeton, with a couple 
of ponies. They were beautiful little creatures, of 
dark chestnut and slender build. Beresford had 
given them to his wife a year ago. They stood now, 
with flashing eyes and arching necks, impatient to 
be off, yet they answered perfectly to every touch 
of the reins. Their mistress managed them admira- 
bly. She prided herself on being a skilled horse- 
woman. 


IN THE LIBRARY. 


261 


Robert Beresford seated his wife and boy in the 
phseton, and placed the reins in her hands. Then 
he said : “I never do this, Stacey, without a lurking 
fear lest I am trusting too precious a load to these' 
fiery little quadrupeds.” 

“ Your fears are all moonshine, Robert !” answered 
the lady, lightly. “ My little ponies, though they 
have plenty of spirit, will never run away with me. 
I can manage them perfectly.” 

“ As perfectly as you can their master !” he rejoined, 
lifting his brows archly. 

Stacey laughed her merriest. “ I shall find my 
own time and way for revenging your cruel sarcasm, 
Robert. Trust a woman for that !” Then, just on 
the point of starting, she grew serious again. She 
looked at her husband with grateful eyes. “I did 
not thank you for your promise in the library ; but 
you have made me the happiest woman in the world, 
Robert !” she said. 

“ Then I am paid for the picture in advance, 
Stacey.” 

With that she pulled the reins. The ponies dashed 
off. Robert Beresford stood and watched them as 
they swept out of the drive into the road. He saw 
his boy take off his cap, and wave it to him ; he saw 
his wife turn back and smile on him. And Robert 
Beresford always remembered how his wife looked, 
with the glow in her cheeks, and the gladness in her 
eyes, as she turned back and smiled on him, before 
she disappeared among the light and dews of the> May 
morning. 


CHAPTER XVI. 


IN THE GROUNDS, 


HE man did not return at once to his library. 



i The delicious air, the bursting loveliness drew 
him like a spell. He sauntered among his grounds 
— ancient grounds, with shady walks and far-spread- 
ing trees, which had sheltered several generations 
of Beresfords. Rustic seats and arbors, and green, 
sloping terraces, and a thousand picturesque ef- 
fects of nature and art, pleased the eyes. The 
owner made it a point to keep the grounds and the 
gray stone mansion, which his father had built, in 
complete order. The land was dearer to him now 
than in the days when he would gladly, for his own 
part, have relinquished every rod of it for liberty to 
retire with his easel and brushes to some corner 
where he could watch in peace the dreams that 
haunted him, grow into life and beauty on his can- 


vases, 


But the spring morning, palpitating with fresh life 
all about him, and the talk in the library, had stirred 
some of the old dreams and visions in the man’s 
heart and brain. Robert Beresford, as he strolled 
among his grounds that morning, watched with an 
artist’s eye the glancing sunlight, the wavering leaves, 


262 


IN THE GROUNDS. 


263 


the lovely effects of light and shade about him. He 
looked at the solid, ample house, and his sense of the 
picturesque pleased itself with the oriel-window, the 
upper balcony, the wide piazzas, which had added so 
much architectural grace to the ancient simplicity. 

Yet, in all these changes, the present owner ha& 
never lost sight of the original design. He liked 
to think : “ If my father were to rise from his 
grave to-day, he would know the old place at a 
glance.” 

The house stood on an elevation which com- 
manded a magnificent view of the country. The 
first Beresford must have had a fine eye for scenery 
— at least so his descendant thought, when he gazed 
from one point and another of his grounds, on the 
wide landscape below him. Ten miles eastward 
stood the dark huddled roofs of Boston, with the 
State-House dome glittering above them, and the 
slender church-spires piercing the blue air. 

In a corner of the grounds, remotest from the 
house, was an outlook, which in some respects sur- 
passed every other. Robert Beresford, without in- 
tending it, suddenly found himself at this place. It 
was separated by a low, thick hedge from the lane 
which bordered one side of th6 grounds. 

He glanced over the broad, noble landscape. He 
saw Cambridge and Somerville in the distance, and 
ancient Medford and pleasant Arlington at hand. 
How fair the old towns and villages looked in the soft 
lights and fresh foliage of the New England May ! 
His eyes were following the blue windings of the 
Mystic when he caught a slight sound, like a half- 


264 


LENOX DARE. 


suppressed cry, and, turning suddenly, he saw some- 
thing which quite drove the landscape out of his 
mind. 

Just inside the hedge stood a hoy, who must have 
been years }munger than Philip. He was Vagged, 
sunbrowned, barefooted. How he came there was 
a mystery. He had probably climbed over some gate, 
or crawled through some gap in the hedge ; and 
the bare, dirty little feet had made no sound on the 
gravel walks. 

The boy had no suspicion that any one was watch- I 
ing him. He had suddenly turned a sharp corner in ■ 
the walk, and his gaze had been arrested by the sight 
of a great swing in front of him. He stood perfectly 
still, gazing at the deep, cushioned seat, his mouth 
wide open, his round, black ej’es full of admiring j 
wonder, his stumpy fingers locked together. Anybody 
with a little imagination might have fancied him a 
small savage before his fetich. That was what Rob- 
ert Beresford thought as he stood just in the shadow 
of the great horse chestnut, and watched the child 
half a dozen yards before him. 

Somebody else watched him, too. It was a man 
squatting on the other side of the hedge — a rather 
short, heavily-built man, with a ragged black beard, 
and shaggy brows overhanging dark, fierce eyes. He 
was a young man still, but his face had a hard, sullen 
look, which never came of an honest, well-spent 
youth ; his clothes were miserably shabby, and there 
was an air of general vagabondage about the man 
which would tell against him in a search for work, or 
a petition for alms. 


IN THE GROUNDS. 


265 


He sat motionless as a figure carved in stone ; but 
he kept watch — intent, suspicious — on the man in- 
side the hedge. There was an ugly gleam in the 
eyes, under the shaggy brows. 

Robert Beresford’s mood was an unusually soft one 
that morning. Whatever came in his way for help 
or pity would have been certain of double measure at 
that moment. Something in the child’s attitude, in 
his rapt gaze, in his general untidiness and poverty, 
went to the man’s heart. A look, half of pity and 
half of amusement, grew in his eyes. But the other, 
a few rods off, skulking behind the hedge, could not 
see that. He fancied the face, half turned from him, 
was growing hard and wrathful, and that the owner 
of the grounds was only deliberating how best to 
visit his anger on the child who had ventured in- 
side his premises. 

Robert Beresford moved stealthily forward ; he 
drew close to the boy. An amused smile played 
under his mustache. 

But the man, behind the hedge, could not see that. 
It did not take him long to make up his mind regard- 
ing the singular behavior of the owner of the grounds. 
It was clear enough that he meant to seize the child 
and give him a terrible beating. At that thought, 
the blood surged into the dark cheeks. There was 
a wolfish gleam in the fierce eyes. 

In the grass, just within the man’s reach, lay a 
heavy club. He stealthily stretched out his hand, 
and drew the weapon toward him. In moments of 
rage, that muscular frame had the strength of a 
giant, as it had proved in many a drunken brawl. 


266 


LENOX DARE. 


In an encounter of this sort the vagrant would 
have had every advantage over the gentleman. 
One blow from that heavy club would lay the lat- 
ter senseless. The chances were that it would kill 
him. 

This was what the other thought. He chuckled 
inwardly with devilish glee. He sat there now, cool, 
alert, but with madness in his brain, and murder in 
his heart. With the child’s first shriek of fright and 
pain he would leap the hedge, as a tiger leaps from 
the jungle. He feared for nothing, cared for nothing 
now, but vengeance — vengeance, swift and terrible 
on the man who was drawing near to strike that boy 
of his — the only thing that he loved on earth. 

The gentleman came a step closer to the small 
figure in the path. It was all done in an instant. 
He caught the child in his arms, swung him up in 
the air, and held him above his head. 

The boy caught his breath ; a look of stunned be- 
wilderment, of swift fright, came into his face. Then 
he glanced down into the amused eyes of his captor. 
A child’s instincts are swift and sure. They seized 
the situation, the pure fun of the thing, in a flash. 
A light broke into the small face. Then the boy 
gave a chuckle of immense glee. At that sound his 
captor tossed him in the air, and caught him deftly 
in his descent. The little fellow burst into shrieks 
of delight, and the gentleman laughed, too — not 
so loud, but almost as merrily as the boy. 

There was something of a boy at the heart of 
Robert Beresford. It came to the surface when he 
frolicked with children. They were very fond of him. 


IN THE GROUNDS. 


267 


Philip always declared there was no playmate like 
papa. 

The frolic went on for a minute or two before 
the man, with a swift movement, brought the child 
down and set him lightly on his feet. Then he stood 
over him, not speaking a word, but, with a laugh in 
his eyes. 

In his short life the boy had never met with 
anything like this. Even his father, of whom he was 
fond, never played with him, and was often harsh or 
sullen, and swore at him every day. But this 
stranger seemed only like a grand, strong, beautiful 
playfellow. The child was already perfectly at ease 
with him, and eager for a repetition of the fun. 

“ Well, sir, you liked that, on the whole, did you?” 
said the gentleman, speaking for the first time, and 
laying his hand on the small, unkempt head. 

The boy plucked his new friend’s coat-sleeve. The 
little tanned face was radiant. 

“ Do it a’din, man, do it a’din !” he cried. 

“ Do it a’din !” repeated the gentleman, patting the 
head this time. “ That is the way you treat me, is 
it ? You walk into my grounds as cool as a prince, 
and you order me about, as though I had no better 
business than to hold myself at your beck and nod. 
No matter where your small boy turns up, he shows 
himself an inborn tyrant in a twinkling !” 

He had no sooner said this, than he bent down 
again, seized the child, and swung him over his 
head ; and there followed some more of that pretty 
tossing and catching in the air, with shrieks of rapture 
from the boy, and the deep bass laughter of the 


man. 


268 


LENOX DARE. 


At last .Robert Beresford set the boy on the 
ground. 

“ There ! I think that will do for one morning,” 
he said. 

All this time, the figure had been crouching be- 
hind the hedge. It had sprung half way to its feet, 
when the owner of the grounds first laid his hands 
on the child. A low, fierce growl broke from the 
man’s lips. Another instant, and he would have been 
over the hedge. But, as he paused for the leap, lis- 
tening, with strained ears, for the blow, and the shriek 
that would follow, he saw the boy held aloft in the 
arms of his captor, and struggling in the air ; he 
saw, an instant later, the look of stunned bewilder- 
ment, of swift terror, change into one of immense 
delight. 

At that sight, he crouched back again behind the 
hedge. Nobody had caught a glimpse of him. He 
sat there and watched, motionless, breathless, the 
pretty pantomime that followed. As he gazed, the 
wolfish glare went slowly out of his eyes, the grip 
on his club' relaxed, while his face had the look 
of one half-stunned. But through all he kept his 
blank, unwinking eyes on the two inside the hedge ; 
not a look, not a syllable, not a gesture, escaped 
him. 

In a moment the owner spoke again. “ Now tell 
me your name.” 

“ Joe.” 

“ Well, Joe, you were looking at that swing with 
big eyes when I saw you. You were thinking it 
would be a grand thing to get into that fine seat, and 


IN THE GROUNDS. 


269 


go swinging off, higher and higher, until your feet 
could brush the sky, or the branch of that big tree. 
You thought it would be the biggest fun in the 
world.” 

“So I did!” exclaimed Joe, his eyes rounder and 
blacker than ever, on perceiving that his thoughts 
had been read so perfectly. 

But, after all, anything seemed possible to his 
new friend. Joe would hardly have been surprised 
if, with a single swoop, he had brought the moon 
down out of the sky for him to play with. 

“ You shall try how it feels. You shall have a 
swing, Joe ! ” 

Before Joe could fully take in the gentleman’s 
meaning, he found himself in the deep, cushioned 
seat. A light touch sent the swing off bravely into 
the air. Joe gave a yell of delight. When he came 
down, another light, strong touch sent him higher. 
The third time his little, bare feet actually grazed 
the lowest limb of the horse chestnut. Joe was in a 
child’s seventh heaven. Every time his feet touched 
the boughs he shrieked with triumph. The gentle- 
man’s laugh occasionally mingled with the boy’s. 
After his long writing, the exercise was a real pleas- 
ure to Robert Beresford. He owed much of his splen- 
did health to the out-door exercise which he daily 
gave himself. 

At the end of ten minutes, perhaps, the owner 
stopped the swing. At that instant he caught sight 
of a figure just behind him, whose large, muscular 
build was surmounted with a ruddy-complexioned, 
honest face. The gardener was viewing the scene 


270 


LENOX DARE. 


before him with stolid amazement. He had been 
drawn to the spot by the laughter and screams of 
the child. 

The man was used to various little eccentricities 
on the part of his young master, but his present be- 
havior and companionship put all other things of 
that sort iuto the shade. 

“Well, Roger,” said his master, laughing at the 
man’s amazed stare, “ do you think I have taken 
leave of my senses ?” 

“ It looks a good deal like it, sir,” answered the 
gardener, touching his hat. He was an Englishman, 
loyal and trusty, as some faithful old mastiff, but 
his prejudices were obstinate, and poverty and va- 
grancy always aroused them. “Where did you pick 
him up ?” 

“ At my feet, literally. He had strolled into the 
grounds through a gap in the hedge, or through a 
side gate. He and I have had glorious times for the 
last twent} r minutes — haven’t we, Joe ? ” 

“ Yes,” promptly answered Joe, glancing with the 
keen instinct of childhood from one face to the other. 
He would probably have run away from Roger as 
fast as his sturdy, little legs could carry him, but he 
was not in the least afraid of Roger’s distinguished- 
looking master. 

The latter regarded the boy again with grave earn- 
estness. 

“ He can’t be as old as my boy,” he said, “ who 
just rode off with his mother, happy and proud as a 
prince, his little head full of toy boats and sailing 
around the world. I believe the thought of him 


IN THE GROUNDS. 


271 


made my heart softer toward every other little 
rogue of his size. This one happened to come in my 
way. Roger,” turning suddenly toward the gardener, 
and looking the man full in the eyes, “ why shouldn’t 
this little ragamuffin have a share in my boy’s birth- 
day ?” 

Roger drew a long breath, and looked doubly 
glum. 

44 It ain’t my business to interfere with your idees, 
sir,” he said, very stiffly, 44 but he’s some wuthless 
tramp’s cub — you may depend on that !” 

“ Very likely. But the boy isn’t to blame for that. 
If Joe here, had been allowed to choose for himself, 
his father would be as honest, industrious, and kind- 
hearted a fellow as you are, Roger Bryke ! ” 

When the man, skulking in the shadow of the 
hedge, heard that, an expression flashed across his 
face, the like of which no human being had ever seen 
there before. 

Roger’s glumness relaxed at that compliment, and 
he even regarded Joe with a slightly mollified air. 

Once more Robert Beresford laid his hand on the 
little tangled head. 

44 Joe,” he said, speaking half to himself, out of the 
abundance of his thoughts, and the fullness of his 
heart, 44 I’m sorry for you ! I should be glad to do 
you some good. You have had a hard time of it so 
far, evidently. It doesn’t seem quite fair on your 
side. I can’t see why my boy should have been born 
into all the good fortune — have had all the prizes 
thrust on him — should know nothing but the soft 
side of life ; should sink into a downy, love-sheltered 


272 


LENOX DARE. 


nest from the beginning, while you — poor little ras- 
cal — have had to be turned out in the cold, to scram- 
ble over the stones, to be torn with the briars. 
When I look at the terrible contrasts in your fates, 
it seems as though things weren’t adjusted on quite 
a fair basis. Why is the balance in my boy’s favor 
so tremendous ? Will you live to grow up, Joe, and 
wish you had had a chance, and think it would have 
made a man of you ? It goes to my heart to think 
you may do that sometime — you, who stand there 
now, looking up 'at me with your puzzled black 
eyes.” 

This speech was, of course, Greek to the boy, who 
listened, and thrust his dirty little toes into the 
gravel ; but there were two men who heard and un- 
derstood perfectly. 

“ Got anybody to take care of you, little boy ?” 
asked the gardener. His tone, as he addressed the 
child, was very unlike what it would have been ten 
minutes before. 

“ Yes,” he said ; “ I’ve got my father.” 

“ Where is he?” 

“ He’s a lookin’ up a job,” answered Joe, as though 
he were repeating a lesson. 

He had been thoroughly instructed in this reply, 
the truth of which depended upon circumstances. 
He and his father had been tramping around the 
country for the last month. There was no doubt, in 
the child’s mind, that the man was lurking some- 
where in the vicinity. Joe had strolled away that 
morning as he was in the habit of doing. The gate, 
accidentally left open, and the pleasant grounds, had 


IN THE GROUNDS. 


273 


attracted him, as they certainly would his father, if 
a chance had offered to help himself to anything 
inside. 

While this talk was going on between the gardener 
I and Joe, Robert Beresford looked at his watch. 
It was later than he supposed. In his business life, 
his mind had grown used to rapid processes, to prompt 
decisions. He resolved on the instant. 

44 Roger,” he said, 44 I haven’t a moment to spare. 
Some important letters must wait for the next mail, 
to pay for my half hour’s frolic with Joe.” If the 
speaker could have dreamed what fate hung for him 
on that half hour ! 44 But I want you to take him 

up to the house, put him into Martha’s hands, and 
tell her to give him a bath ; and when he is clean 
as her scrubbing can make him, tell her to dress 
him in one of Philip’s suits. Something the boy 
has outgrown will just fit this one,” measuring 
Joe’s sturdy little figure with his rapid glance. 
44 Your wife will know how to do this thing perfectly ; 
and I want Joe thoroughly dressed, from his cap to 
his shoe strings, and to have afterward a breakfast 
set before him — the best the house affords — mind. 
Tell Martha I trust the thing in her hands. Ask her 
to do it for my sake.” 

44 I’ll tell her, sir ; and Martha’ll carry out your 
orders to the letter. But — beggin’ your pardon — 
what are you doin’ all this to the little beggar 
for?” 

44 What am I doing it for ?” repeated Roger’s mas- 
ter. 44 1 hardly know myself. I suspect Phil and 
his birthday have a good deal to do with it. I want 


274 


LENOX DARE. 


Joe to have a share in my boy’s fun. I really 
haven’t any plans regarding him. One learns to be 
chary about meddling with other people’s lives. 
Bring the little waif up to the library, after he has 
had his breakfast, and we will see what Martha and 
clean clothes have done for him. It won’t hurt him 
to go back to his father with a new suit and a full^ 
stomach, will it, Joe?” 

As he said that, the speaker took Joe’s little 
soiled hand in his palm. The boy had listened, with 
round, puzzled eyes, to all this talk ; he compre- 
hended very little of it ; but he would have gone 
that morning with his new friend to the end of the 
earth. 

They turned toward the house. Roger followed a 
little in their rear. When they came to the path 
which led to the side of the house, Joe’s friend 
paused. 

“You must go with this man now, Joe,” he said. 
“ He will take good care of you.” 

Joe hesitated a moment, and glanced up doubt- 
fully into the gardener’s face. When the man saw 
that, he smiled a little encouraging smile on the 
boy. 

Then Joe took his little, black paw from the gen- 
tleman and placed it in the gardener’s big, red hand, 
and trotted off contentedly by his side. Robert 
Beresford stood a moment, watching them, with a 
smile in his eyes. 

“Joe isn’t the only one who will get some good 
out of this !” he said to himself, as he went to the 
library. 


IN THE GROUNDS. 


275 


But he did not suspect there was another of 
whom this might be said. The man with the weather- 
beaten, sullen face, still sat in the shadow of the 
hedge. He had thrown his club in the young grass, 
where the dews still lingered. His big hands were 
locked together, his powerful frame shivered some- 
times with an inward sob. For the most part, how- 
i ever, he sat motionless, while out of eyes that, a little 
while ago, had blazed with wrath and vengeance, a 
few tears dropped slowly, and shone in the coarse, 
ragged beard. 

Two hours later Joe sat in the kitchen, before what, 
in his eyes, was a banquet for princes. A kindly- 
faced, middle-aged woman, was watching him with a 
good deal of interest. It was difficult for her to rec- 
ognize in the shining-faced boy before her, with his 
fresh brown jacket, and his bit of snowy collar, the 
ragged little vagrant whom her husband had brought 
to her two hours ago. The mop of stubborn hair 
had yielded at last to Martha’s patient fingers, and 
now lay smooth and curly around the open, tanned 
forehead. She had a right to feel some pride in 
the transformation she had effected. 

As- for Joe himself, he must have found it diffi- 
cult to realize his identity. He was half starved, too. 
Never had such tempting rolls, such fragrant coffee, 
such juicy steak passed his lips. He ate and drank 
with the greediness of a young animal ; but in the 
midst cf it all, he would pause occasionally to in- 
spect his new trousers, or to lift up one foot, and, 
with his head a little on one side, stare, solemn and 
admiring, at his polished boot, 


276 


LENOX DARE. 


Martha had turned away to hide a smile at that 
sight, when somebody called her in a load, frightened 
voice. She went oat in a hurry, leaving Joe all alone. 
Then he heard a sharp cry, and other voices that 
seemed full of amazement and terror. There was a 
rushing to and fro, the tread of heavy feet in the halls. 
Joe began to feel that something had happened. 
But he ate on, pausing to listen, between the mouth- 
fuls, and nobod}^ came near him. 

At last his appetite was sated, and then the 
stillness and strangeness began to oppress him ; he 
grew uneasy ; he wished Roger would come and 
take him to the man who knew how to play better 
than a boy, for all he was such a grand gentle- 
man ; and finally, Joe slipped off his seat and went 
to the door, hoping he should get a glimpse of 
somebody. But he found nothing outside but the 
bright sunshine, and the young leaves astir in 
the soft air, and he heard the birds singing in 
the stillness ; he looked carefully around him for 
some signs of human life as he went slowly to the 
gate by which he had first entered the grounds. 
All the time he had a feeling that something was 
in the air. When he reached the gate, he glanced 
up and down the lane. Then he caught sight of his 
father, skulking in the shadow of the hedge. The 
two had separated on the edge of the town that 
morning. It was nothing for Joe to stroll off by him- 
self, for an hour or two. Some feeble glimmer of 
self-respect still showed itself in the fiction which the 
man kept up of looking out for a job, when idleness 
and bad habits forced him off with Joe on a tramp. 


IN THE GROUNDS. 


277 


He could not leave the boy behind. Joe’s mother 
had sunk out of life years before — crushed by toil 
and hardship. 

Joe went softly up the lane to the man. His new 
clothes sat oddly upon him. He felt very grand, and 
a little ashamed withal. He was curious to see 
whether the man would recognize him. 

Joe stole up to the back of the big, shambling fig- 
ure, clasping with its hands its knees. 

44 Father ! ” lie said softly. 

The man turned sharply at that, and saw the little 
figure standing there, with its clean face and its fresh 
clothes. What a contrast to the ragged little cub he 
had seen scampering away from him down on the 
railroad ! 

Joe stood quite still, while his father looked him 
slowly over. At last, when his gaze had taken in 
everything, from the neat little cap to the pol- 
ished boots, he broke out: “ Who’d V believed they 
could ’a’ smartened you up into such a young 
buck, Joe ! How do you like fine clothes, you little 
dog?” 

“ I think they’s jolly,” answered Joe. “ Other 
things has happened which was jolly, too.” 

“ I know that,” replied the man. “ I was sittiiT 
here all the time. I heard what went on the other 
side ! ” 

At that, Joe had not a word to say, but his 
eyes grew big with astonishment. He stared at his 
father awhile in silence, then he squatted down on 
the grass beside him. He had come, primed with a 
tale of miracles, and now there seemed nothing to 
tell. 


278 


LENOX DARE. 


But his father was curious about what had hap- 
pened in the house. Joe related everything to the 
best of his ability. But he had no language to ex- 
press the feeling which had crept over him in the 
strangeness and stillness, and which had sent him out 
of the house with a vague fear. 

After he had done questioning, the man sat still a 
long time, gazing at Joe. The boy fancied his fa- 
ther was inspecting his new clothes, but there was a 
grave, softened expression in the whole face. Some- 
thing was at work in the man’s brain ; something was 
pulling at his heart. At last it became audible. 

“ Joe,” he said, suddenly, and his tone made the 
boy look up in a startled way, “ you’d have a grand 
time if you could go and live with that gentleman. 
S’pose now, you could do it ? He’d take good care of 
you. He’d al’ays be thinkin’ of his own boy, when 
he see you about. If he’d given his word, he’d keep 
it ; he’d make a man of you. You’d have fine clo’es 
all the time, and good things to eat, and a soft bed 
to sleep in. Your little legs wouldn’t grow tired 
trampin’ around the country, and you’d have a chance 
to be somethin’ like other boys as has homes, and 
comforts, and those as care for ’em. Now, Joe, own 
up ! You’d like all that, wouldn’t you ? Likely as 
not you could live in this grand house, and play in the 
grounds every day ; and that fine gentleman would 
have an eye on you, and see you didn’t want for any- 
thing. You’d like all that now, Joe, wouldn’t 
you ?” 

Joe’s black eyes sparkled, his little, tanned face 
flushed with delighted anticipation. 


IN THE GROUNDS. 


279 


“ I should like it — lots an’ lots ! ” he cried. 

Then his father rose. “ Come, Joe,” he said, in a 
loud, resolute tone. “ I’ve made up my mind. I’m 
goin’ to take you to that grand gentleman, and ask 
him to give you a chance. I’m goin’ to tell him to do 
it, as he did them other things to-day — for the sake 
of his own boy ! Come along ! ” 

Joe slipped his little, hard hand in his father’s with 
alacrity. Then he glanced at the club lying in the 
grass. He had seen that before. His father had 
carried it off from the old barn into which the two 
had crept after dark and passed the night in the sweet- 
smelling hay. 

“ What are you goin’ to do with that, father ? ” 
asked Joe. 

The man seized the club with a muttered curse, 
and shot it with all his strength, to the other side of 
the lane ; then he took Joe’s hand again, and they 
trudged on together. 

The boy’s head was full of the grand times that 
were coming — of frolics, and swings, and wonderful 
breakfasts, and, above all, of the kind gentleman to 
smile on him and play with him every day. His im- 
agination was bewitched with visions wild and lovely 
enough for a fairy-tale, only Joe had never heard of 
fairy-tales. 

Suddenly he heard his father speaking. “ One of 
these days you’ll get so fine, Joe, you’ll be ashamed 
of your old dad, and with reason enough, too. He 
ain’t b'een much of a father to you. But he’ll be 
lonely a good many times, and miss his little boy 
that’s been a comfort to him when we’ve been off 


280 


LENOX DARE. 


round the country, lookin’ out for a job. There’ll 
be days and nights as’ll hang heavy without you, 
Joe ! ” 

The man stopped short there. When Joe looked 
up, he saw something shining on his father’s eye- 
lashes. The round little face suddenly grew grave. 
The sparkle of hope and anticipation went out of the 
boy’s eyes. Some new thought was at work in his 
brain ; some new feeling tugged at his heart. At 
last, just as they reached the gate, he stood still ; he 
pulled at the man’s sleeve. 

“ Father,” he said, “ you — you needn’t go in there. 
I’ll stay with you, and go off on the tramp.” 

There was a pause. A struggle worked in the 
man’s face. It shook even his big, slouching figure. 
Then he spoke with dogged resolve : “No, Joe; I 
won’t have it on my conscience that I stood in your 
way. You shall have a chance, I say !” and he hur- 
ried the boy inside the gate as though he were afraid 
to trust himself. 

Joe’s father knocked at the back door until his 
hard knuckles stung. It stood ajar, just as Joe had 
left it, affording an opportunity for one who had been 
disposed to enter and help himself to anything on 
which he could lay his hands. 

At last a maid came to the door. She had an ab- 
sent, scared look, but she had not Martha’s pleasant 
face. Her first glance at Joe’s father was not likely 
to impress her in his favor. He asked for the master 
of the house. 

“ You can’t see him to-day,” she answered, curtly. 
“ He’s gone away, and it’s in great trouble he is.” 


IN THE GROUNDS. 


281 


“ But I must see him,” said Joe’s father, very de- 
cidedly. “ I ain’t a tramp, woman. I’ve business 
with your master. It’s about this boy. He wants to 
see him,” and he pushed Joe forward. 

“ You can’t see him to-day, I tell you,” said the 
maid, excitedly. Then she broke out, more prob- 
ably for the sake of relieving her feelings, than to 
enlighten Joe’s father : “ The poor gentleman has 
gone to the mistress ; he was writing in his library 
when they came for him. The ponies ran away 
with her, and they’re afraid she’s killed, though 
they hadn’t the heart to tell him ; and now he’s 
gone to her, he’ll find out for himself. Oh, the 
beautiful lady ! ” and with that she burst into a 
loud wail and shut the door in the faces of the 
two. 

Joe’s chance was gone ! That day his father met 
some of his old comrades. They drank together and 
afterward set out on their tramp. 

The same night Stacey Beresford was brought back 
to the home out of which she had passed in smiling 
loveliness that spring morning. 

The ponies were turning a sharp curve in the road, 
when a great elm tree which they were cutting down 
in a field near by, fell with a terrible crash. The 
horses took fright, and dashed along the road for some 
distance, their mistress vainly striving to hold them. 
On one side of the road was a bank, which fell, steep 
and ragged, into a deep ravine. It was all over in an 
instant ! 

Philip was picked up on the edge of the bank, 
with only a few bruises. But they found his 


282 


LENOX DARE. 


mother on the other side, lying in the rocky hol- 
low, beneath the ruins of her phaeton. She opened 
her eyes and stared bewildered around her. Then 
she closed them again without a moan. Stacey 
Beresford’s eyes had looked their last on the world ! 


CHAPTER XVII. 


AFTER NINE YEARS. 

I T would be nine years in September since Lenox 
Dare went away from Briars wild. They who 
•waited in the June twilight said this to each other, 
and found it hard to believe their own words. Time 
had passed smoothly and swiftly over the Mavis 
household. The first year of Lenox’s absence had, 
of course, been the one when she was missed most 
keenly. Yet it was not in the nature of mother or 
son to indulge unavailing regrets. 

Lenox’s letters, too, seemed almost like that young, 
joyous presence in the household. Her friends knew, 
from month to month, where she was — what she was 
doing. She wrote always in the confident expecta- 
tion of returning the next year. Some good reason 
as constantly delayed that event. 

“ But it was only one year more, after all !” Mrs. 
Mavis would say, with her usual habit of looking 
at the bright side of things, and Ben always acqui- 
esced with apparent cheerfulness. Each knew, too, 
that the separation might be ended any moment. 
Tom Apthorp would keep his promise. They had 
only to speak the word, and Lenox and her uncle 
would cross the sea. That conviction, however, 

283 


284 


LENOX DARE. 


imposed a double reticence upon the pair. They 
would never stand in the way of the girl’s highest 
good. 

But at last she was coming home ! They were 
looking for her as the brown, summer twilight deep- 
ened in the air, and they sat in the sitting-room — 
so little changed — where Lenox had stood on that 
night when she first came to them. They thought 
of this sometimes, although they did not speak of it 
— perhaps they would not — even if a third — one 
who had never seen Lenox Dare — had not sat with 
them. 

There was a kind of repressed excitement in the 
air. Even Mrs. Mavis’s busy hands were still, while 
her ears were strained, listening for the sound of car- 
riage wheels up the road. It was by no means certain 
the travellers would arrive that night. The steamer 
might not be in time for them to take the early train. 
They would be tired with their long voyage. Mrs. 
Mavis said this to Ben, and then she remembered 
there could be no rest for Lenox Dare like that 
which awaited her under the roof at Briarswild ! 

Mrs. Mavis’s face wears its old brightness, as she 
sits there in her black silk dress and becoming cap. 
If she has grown thinner and older, that will be left 
for Lenox to find out. Ben, seeing her every day, 
is not conscious of any change. The nine years have 
set their markon him in all gracious ways. Nobody 
can look upon the broad-chested, shapely-limbed, 
manly young fellow without admiring him. He has 
grown used to responsibilities, to respect, and a cer- 
tain deference from those about him. His shrewd 


AFTER NINE YEARS. 


285 


sense, his high integrity, gave his opinions great 
weight in the township, and outside of it. Mean- 
while the old Mavis farm thrived under its young 
owner’s care, and the affairs of the county usually 
prospered when he had a hand in them. 

The third person that waited, as I said, with the 
mother and son, that June twilight, was a young 
woman two or three years past twenty. If you saw 
her for the first time your inward exclamation would 
be, “ What a pretty creature !” and the thought 
would be sure to repeat itself every time you turned 
to gaze on her. Her glossy hair, full of rich auburn 
tints, her face with its soft curves of youth and 
health, her eyes of the summer’s own blue, and her 
delicate rose-bloom made a picture, not of marvel- 
ous beauty, but of rare prettiness. 

Dorrice Cropsey had been at the Mavis farm for 
the last two years. She was an orphan — her only 
kin a brother who was seeking his fortune at the 
West. She was a niece of the husband of Ben’s aunt. 
The Mavises had found the girl with their relative on 
their last visit. Dorrice was a mere child at the time, 
but her bright prattle, her sparkling face, had helped 
to cheer the darkness of those days. On his way 
West, Dorrice’s brother — a good many years her 
senior — had brought his sister to visit at Briars- 
wild. She had remained there ever since. Mrs. 
Mavis had become attached to the girl. Ben liked 
her, too. Indeed it was impossible to live with Dor- 
rice Cropsey and not like her. She was an arch, 
playful, warm-hearted creature. If she was not bril- 
liant nor witty she had pretty, quaint ways of manner 


286 


LENOX DARE. 


and of speech. She sang about the house like a bird ; 
she flitted around the rooms like sunshine. Dorrice 
was on the qui vive with expectation. She had been 
hearing about Lenox ever since she came to the 
homestead. She had listened to her letters, and was 
prepared to admire her immensely; for Dorrice had 
the capacity for worship of simple, ardent natures. 
She was dressed daintily in some light, cool, summer 
fabric, with pink ribbons at her throat. Her cheeks 
and eyes, had an unusual glow. Young Mavis noticed 
that when he roused himself from a reverie. They 
had all been a little silent, since they came in, an 
hour ago, from the supper-table. 

Dorrice looked so pretty that Ben smiled at her. 
That frank, kindly smile brought to light the 
secret thought that had been at work in Dorrice’s 
head all day. 

“ She has seen so much of the world — she is such 
a grand lady that I am almost afraid to meet her !” 

“ You need not be afraid, Dorrice,” said Ben. 

One might almost fancy there was a little exultant 
thrill in his tones. 

At that instant they caught the sound of wheels 
up the road. A moment later a carriage was in 
sight. It whirled rapidly along. It was at the gate 
almost before they were at the door. Before any 
one else could alight, a lady, young and tall, had 
leaped swiftly to the ground. 

“ O Mrs. Mavis !” she cried. It was the voice of 
Lenox Dare. It thrilled the air with its old, familiar 
sweetness. 

“ Oh, my child !” exclaimed Mrs. Mavis, and the 
two women hung upon each other. 


AFTER NINE YEARS. 


287 


Ben was there — Lenox saw him a moment later 
— standing in his stalwart young manhood by the 
side of his mother. Before she could speak, her 
uncle had joined the group, and the two men were 
clasping hands. 

At the door Dorrice met them with her smiles and 
roses — a welcoming Hebe. 

As Lenox crossed the threshold, Mrs. Mavis called 
to her : “ Stand still, my dear ! My eyes have grown 
dim. I want to see how you look — to find out 
what all these years have been doing to you !” 

Lenox stood still, and the hall-light streamed over 
her, and the four people gazed upon her. 

The summer after Lenox Dare went abroad she 
and her uncle were among the Alps. One after- 
noon they were coming down a narrow pass, to 
their hotel in the valley below. Lenox’s cheeks 
were flushed, and her eyes brightened with the toil 
and excitement of her five hours’ climb. A couple 
of young men, turning a sharp corner of the rocks, 
came suddenly upon the girl and her uncle. She 
had paused a moment to take breath, leaning upon 
her Alpenstock. She wore a straw hat, and a simple 
mountain-suit. As she looked up and returned the 
strangers’ salutation, all the color about her was in her 
glowing face. One of the young men, a minute later, 
remarked, with a slightly foreign accent,- to his com- 
panion : “ What a handsome creature she was !” 

Lenox’s uncle knew she overheard the remark. 
She started and glanced up at him, with a face full 
of surprise, and a heightened color in her cheeks ; 
but she said nothing. 


288 


LENOX DARE. 


That evening, however, he noticed that the girl 
was absorbed, and that even the view from their hotel 
window, of snow-crowned ranges, in all their burning 
splendors of sunset, failed to attract her. They were 
standing together, when he turned suddenly and said, 
“ What is it, Lenox ?” 

She hesitated a moment, then she answered with 
her usual transparency : “You heard what that 
young man said after we passed him on the mountain 
this afternoon ?” 

“ I heard, Lenox.” 

“ Can it possibly be true ? I never dreamed of 
such a thing:” she added this last remark to herself.- 

Tom Apthorp watched his niece curiously. She 
actually went across the room to a mirror, and sur- 
veyed herself in the glass from head to foot. Her 
uncle knew enough of womankind to perceive what 
a turning-point this might be in the girl’s life. He 
felt as though he could have sent the young fellow 
to the foot of the Alps. Lenox’s simplicity had 
had an endless charm for the wordly-wise man. Was 
all that gone now ? he asked himself. Had the 
breath of the world passed over that virgin fresh- 
ness, and dimmed it forever ? 

In a few minutes, Lenox came back to her uncle. 
There was a puzzled look on her face. 

“ Uncle Tom, can it possibly be true?” She asked 
again, with an earnestness that was half amusing, 
half pathetic. 

The man looked at her a few moments, silently, 
critical^. He tried to divest himself of any partiality 
which might bias his judgment. What a girlish, half- 


AFTER NINE YEARS. 


289 


childish face it was under the shadow of those masses 
of hair ! It was a face dark and thin. Its curves 
lacked roundness, its cheeks lacked color. But there 
could be no question about the brown eyes, or the 
delicate arch of the dark brows, or the perfect 
line of the lips, behind which glimmered the beauti- 
ful teeth that were the birthright of the Apthorps. 
Plainly it was a face that had not come to its possi- 
bilities. Her uncle felt that any opinion he might 
now express would be premature. But Lenox found 
that long, silent gaze insupportable. She had flushed 
to her temples, and was turning away, when her 
uncle spoke : “ Ask me this question eight years later, 
Lenox, and I shall be able to answer you.” 

“ Eight years later !” repeated Lenox, with an 
incredulous laugh. “By that time, Uncle Tom, I 
shall be too old to care about my looks !” 

But it seemed to her uncle she was never the 
same simple, unconscious girl, after she caught, in 
the Alpine pass, the stranger’s remark that after- 
noon. 

She never recurred to it, however, and it was 
more than eight years before her uncle did. They 
were in London then, and had been to dine with some 
of his old Calcutta friends. 

“Lenox,” said her uncle, when they were alone 
together, “you remember that first summer we were 
in Switzerland, how we both overheard a remark 
about you, as we came down the mountain pass ?” 

“ Perfectly.” 

“ You asked me a question that night which I was 
not then prepared to answer. I promised to do it, 


200 


LENOX DARE. 


however, eight years later. You have not asked me 
that question again.” 

Lenox came now and stood before her uncle. 

“ There was no need I should ask you, Uncle 
Tom,” she said, with a kind of triumphant thrill in 
her voice. “ I knew !” 

“ And you are glad of it ?” 

“lama woman, and you can ask me such a ques- 
tion?” 

Lenox Dare stands only a moment in the hall at 
Briarswild, with the light flooding over her. But it 
is long enough. No one who saw that picture will 
ever forget it ; and of the four who gazed on the 
woman one was her lover. 

“ My dear child !” exclaimed Mrs. Mavis, in a tone 
that was half-amazement, half-motherly pride, “ you 
have been growing a beauty ! I never dreamed of 
your doing that.” 

The travellers had hurried from the steamer, not 
stopping for even a day’s rest after their voyage. 
“ We can take our ease at Briarswild, Uncle Tom,” 
Lenox said. “ Until we get there I shall have no 
rest — even on my native soil.” 

She went straight to the sitting-room. She could 
not fail to remember now that other night when she 
stood here a worn and homeless wanderer. As she 
i glanced around the familiar room that old scene rose 
before her. She could not have spoken her thought 
at that moment, even had her uncle not been at her 
side. He did not suspect the memory that shook her 
for an instant, but two others did when they saw 
how she paused, how her lips suddenly trembled. 


AFTER NINE YEARS. 


291 


She took her old seat by the window, in silence ; but 
a little later a look of ineffable content stole over 
her face. “ How good it is to be at home again !” she 
murmured. 

She said that to herself constantly, for days and nights 
that followed. She roamed about the house and grounds 
like one in a happy dream. The morning after her 
arrival she went to Dainty’s stall. The creature 
whinnied when she heard her mistress’ voice, and 
felt the touch of those soft fingers about her mane. 
The little, high-bred colt, that had played so import- 
ant a part in Lenox’s history, was always kept in 
splendid condition. The men believed that young 
Mavis would sooner have parted with all the ani- 
mals in his stables than with that fleet, gray mare. 

Once more the old rooms were filled with the 
bright, inspiring presence. There was so much 
to hear and tell, after these nine years, that seemed 
hardly like two now they were all together again. 
The changes they had wrought in Lenox grew more 
apparent the longer one saw her. She had gone out 
from Briarswild a mere slip of a girl — she came 
back to it now, a graceful, elegant woman. 

Tom Apthorp had kept his word. He had more 
than fulfilled the promises he had made to his niece 
that summer afternoon, in the Mavis orchard. To 
indulge his young kinswoman, to afford her every 
advantage and opportunity which had been denied 
her childhood, became the central purpose of the 
man’s life. No doubt a secret remorse was at the 
bottom of all this. Tom Apthorp spared neither 
time, pains, nor money in the accomplishment of 


292 


LENOX DARE. 


his purpose. Lenox had the best masters the world 
afforded. She studied the languages in their native 
air. She visited the great capitals of Europe; their 
palaces, cathedrals, and picture-galleries. The treas- 
ures of all the schools of art were laid open to a 
soul which nature had formed to enter far into their 
secret, and read their meanings of eternal truth and 
beauty. Her life was full, rich, varied. Her uncle 
watched, with secret pride and delight, the blossoming 
of this rare flower into womanhood. 

“ My little girl shall have the best of the world at 
last !” he said to himself. 

Each year his plans for her development, his desire 
to afford her new opportunities, took some fresh form, 
some wider range. It was these alone which had kept 
them so long abroad. A return to Briars wild — even I 
for a visit — would have seriously interfered with j 
his plans at the time. 

To one who understood there would have been 
something pathetic in the man’s resolve not to lose j 
a moment, to secure the best for Lenox while there 
was yet time. He never thought of his dead sister, | 
without a pang smote his conscience for his long 
neglect of her orphan child. A coarser nature would: 
not have so sternly reckoned with itself; a com- 
moner one would not have been so passionately bent) 
on retrieving an unconscious wrong. 

Tom Apthorp had, through his long residence in 
India, a wide European acquaintance. In whatever 
country they traveled, he could introduce his niece to 
the best circles. She met the most celebrated men I 
and women — poets, artists, statesmen, — the gen- 


AFTER NINE YEARS. 


293 


iuses, the commanding intellects, the great brains and 
hearts of the world. Sometimes, in the midst of spa- 
cious, thronged drawing-rooms, Lenox Dare’s thoughts 
would suddenly slip away to the old turnpike, to 
the little attic-chamber, with its small window-panes 
and its rows of books ; she would see herself a lonely 
j orphan girl, feeding her soul, like Charles Lamb, on 
“ that fair and wholesome pasturage of English read- 
ing.” 

Perhaps that sudden vision, in the midst of all the 
splendor, made her heart pitiful for all desolate souls, 
and kept her head from growing a little giddy in 
the world’s atmosphere of prosperity and flatter}". 

She began to be very much admired. Her beauty 
opened slowly, year by year, into its perfect flower. 
Then she had a power, a fascination, which went 
deeper than all her beauty, which would hold men 
and women when that faded. She had a marvelous 
gift of drawing out the best, sincerest side of peo- 
ple. In her companionship men and women seemed 
to find anew the dreams of their youth, the aspira- 
tions of their noblest hours. Women of the world, 
dizzied by its flatteries and ambitions, seemed in her 
presence, to go back to the fresh heart of their girl- 
hood. 

If she was such a joyful, stimulating influence in 
the lives of her friends, it is impossible to say what 
she was to her sole kinsman. His love and pride 
centered themselves on her, the last of his race — the 
young girl who took the place of wife and daughter 
to the wifeless, childless man. 

Lenox, in her turn, met no man whom she thought 


294 


LENOX DARE. 


could bear a moment’s comparison with her uncle. 
She repaid his devotion with a passion of gratitude. 
That atmosphere of mystery and romance which, in 
her eyes, had invested him when he first appeared to 
her — a marvelous surprise, from the ends of the 
earth — still surrounded him. 

With her woman’s intuition Lenox had divined 
the secret remorse of her uncle’s life. She never 
quite forgave herself for the reproaches that had 
once broken from her. Since that time, neither had 
alluded to them. Lenox could not save her uncle 
from the stinging memory of his long neglect ; but 
she had her own ways of showing how she felt all 
he had done for her — what he had made of her life 
in these later years. Their confidence in each other 
was absolute. The stately, handsome, elderly man, 
and the young, beautiful woman, were often taken 
for newly-wedded husband and wife — a fact which, 
whenever it came to their knowledge, afforded the 
pair infinite amusement. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


ONE "WORD, 


ENOX DARE had been at Briarswild. three 



days, when she and Ben Mavis came out on the 
piazza for a walk. It was the loveliest of evenings, 
with drowsing winds, and a full summer moon. He 
gave her his arm, and for a little while they walked 
in silence. The moonlight shone on the beautifully- 
shaped head, on all the clear, delicate curves of 
cheek, and lip, and brow of the woman, and on the 
strong, broad-chested figure and handsome face of 
the young man. 

Ben was nearly thirty now, though he did not 
look so ; and one would hardly have taken Lenox 
to be twenty-five, though she was almost three } T ears 
older ; her life was not like those flowers which reach 
their perfection of bloom and fragrance in the spring- 
time — it was of that rarer kind, which need the 
slow, rich summer for their full unfolding. 

When Lenox looked up she met the glance of 
Ben’s clear gray eyes. 

“ They seem like a dream, Ben,” she said, “ these 
nine years since you and I walked here, on just such 
nights as this.” 

“You thought of the walks, then, sometimes, 


Lenox ? ” 


295 


296 


LENOX DAEE. 


“ Thought of them ! ” she echoed, in a surprised, 
rather hurt tone. “ I don’t believe you can imagine, 
especially now you have asked that question, just what 
it seems to me to be walking here again ! ” 

“I, too, have thought of those old evenings, 
Lenox,” he said, with a voice steady as her own, 
“ when I walked here in the moonlight alone.” 

She heard the words, without dreaming that any 
hidden meaning lurked in them. In all these years 
a suspicion that young Mavis’s feeling for her was 
unlike her own for him, had never crossed her mind. 
When they first met, Lenox was too much of a child 
for any possible dream of love. Then the very close- 
ness of their household life had not been in Ben’s 
favor. Her imagination required mystery and dis- 
tance to fascinate it. Ben had seen this long ago ; 
his love had made him wise ; he knew their intimacy 
had been his misfortune. 

“ You are just the grand, loyal fejlow you always 
were ! ” said Lenox, again. “ I knew how you would 
miss me, and think of the old times, and wish they 
were all they had been before Uncle Tom came. O, 
Ben ! ” her voice suddenly shook, “ do you think I can 
forget ? ” 

“ Forget what, Lenox ? ” 

“ Where I was when you first found me. It always 
seemed that I had not been half grateful enough — ” 

Young Mavis suddenly stood still, as though a blow 
had struck him. 

“ I hate that word ! ” he exclaimed, in a tone of 
passionate bitterness. “ Never let me hear you speak 
it, Lenox, as long as we live ! ” His voice was half 
a groan, and half a command. 


ONE WORD. 


297 


She was a little startled at his vehemence ; hut it 
was like him, she thought. The generous soul re- 
sented any hint of debt on her part. 

“ Forgive me, Ben ; I did not mean to pain you,” 
she said. 

“ I am sure of that, Lenox.” 

With her woman’s quick tact she began to talk of 
other matters — of the household life, so little altered, 
of the delight of coming home, and finding so few 
changes in the people or the world around her, mak- 
ing it seem, after all, as though she had only been 
gone on a visit. 

“ A visit that lasted nine years, Lenox!” suggested 
Ben. 

“ I know ; but they hardly seem like two to-night.” 

He did not reply, and after a little pause she spoke 
again : “ There was another evening, Ben, which I 
used to remember, almost as often as that first one.” 

“ What evening was that, Lenox ? ” 

“ It was the one before Uncle Tom came. Every- 
thing that happened about that time was always com- 
ing up to me. You and I had a long walk on the 
piazza. It was just such a summer night as this — 
not a cloud in the sky ; only the stars and a great, sol- 
emn moon. I plucked my solitary tea-rose, and fas- 
tened it in your buttonhole, that night. Of course 
you have forgotten all about it.” 

“No, I have not forgotten. I have kept that with- 
ered tea-rose all these years, Lenox.” 

Had any other man than Ben Mavis made this 
speech to Lenox Dare it might have awakened some 
suspicions in her mind. She was a woman. She had 


298 


LENOX DARE. 


learned tlie power of her beauty, the spell of her 
charms. But her grateful, sisterly affection for young 
Mavis had no touch of romantic sentiment. The no- 
tion of his being her lover would have seemed as ab- 
surd now as it did in the days when Guy Fosdick 
used to jest about him. 

“ Have you that rose, still ? ” she asked, surprised 
and touched. “ And my little bush, with its one 
flower, has spread into a great tree ! I could not count 
its blossoms now. Do you mean to say, Ben, you 
have tended my rose-bush through all these years be- 
cause of that flower I gave } r ou ? ” 

“ I mean to say just that, Lenox.” 

Whenever he recalled the talk of that night, this 
moment always seemed to Ben Mavis its most perilous 
one. A fierce desire surged through him to turn and 
clasp this woman madly to his heart ; to tell her what 
she had been to him all these years ; to pray her to 
have mercy on the love which had become, in silence 
and absence, a part of his life. 

And while the fire leaped along his pulses, and the 
brave young heart and the strong brain wavered, 
he heard again the voice at his side. She was speak- 
ing of his mother. 

“ Is it my fancy, Ben, or is she looking pale and 
shadowy ? It struck me that she was, when I first 
saw her ; and though the impression has partly worn 
off I cannot get rid of a feeling that she is not quite 
well — not just her old self.” 

“ She never complains,” he answered. “I see her 
every day, and that may be the reason I have noticed 
no change.” 


ONE WORD. 


299 


Then Lenox spoke of Dorrice Cropsey. 

44 What an arch, winsome creature she is — pretty 
enough, too, to sit for an artist when he would paint 

* Flora 

Peering in April’s front.’ ” 

44 Dorrice is like sunlight in the house,” he an- 
swered. 44 She has been a great comfort to mother, 
ever since she came here.” 

But though he made these replies promptly and 
steadily enough, his heart was not in them. 

At last Lenox came back to himself again. 

“ After all, Ben, I believe that nobody has changed 
quite so much as you have.” 

“ I ! What do you mean, Lenox ? ” 

“ That every change is for the better, Ben.” 

She smiled up at him in the moonlight — a smile 
that finished her speech, with a flattery, delicate be- 
yond any words. 

“ Ah, Lenox,” he replied, “ I might well say that 
of you. I might tell you how you are changed in all 
wonderful and beautiful ways ; but I have no speech 
fine enough to express my thoughts. Other men 
must have told you all that I would, in words that 
would make mine seem poor and bungling.” 

“ No, Ben, that is not true. Your praise must al- 
ways seem something dearer and better than other 
men’s.” 

She spoke now with the low, serious tone he knew 
so well — the tone when she was very much in ear- 
nest. 

Ben’s heart leaped again. 44 Do you mean all that, 
Lenox ? ” and he stopped her where the moonlight 
could shine full upon her face. 


300 


LENOX DARE. 


“ I mean all that. How could it be otherwise. 
Ben — my brother ? ” 

What a tender name it was what a soft voice 
that spoke it ; and yet that last word shot a terrible 
bolt through Ben Mavis’s heart. He knew then, how 
his hope had lived on, silent and secret, through all 
these years. He knew, too, those last words of hers 
had been its death blow ! 

There was a sob in his throat. And the woman 
who walked by his side, in the moonlight, never 
dreamed of what she had done. 

In a little while he heard her speaking again. 

“ I want to ask you a question, Ben. May I ? ” 

“ Ask anything you like, Lenox.” 

“Has any woman, since I have gone away — ” 

“ I know what you mean, Lenox,” he interrupted, 
sharply. “ It is the only perfectly silly question you 
ever asked me. There is no other woman.” 

“ I am glad to hear you say that ; though, no 
doubt, the feeling is wickedly selfish on my part. 
But it is good to come back and find that nobody else 
is in my place.” 

“ You will always come back and find that, Lenox,” 
he said, in a tone of mocking gayety, because he 
feared that any other would fail, and betray him. “ I 
am as deeply vowed to old bachelorhood as any 
old monk to his beads and his cell.” 

She laughed lightly at that, but she answered half- 
seriously : “ You will not always tell me that, Ben. 
Perdita may long be in hiding, but you will come 
across her some day, and you will know your prin- 
cess when you see her.” 


ONE WORD. 


301 


“ That is too pretty a fancy, Lenox, to go so wide 
of the mark. I begin to suspect — ” 

She stopped him there. “ I know what you are 
going to say. There is not truth enough in it Ben, 
to point your jest.” 

“But there may be, sometime. If you will talk 
that stuff about Perditas why should not I retort with 
Florizels ? ” 

“ Why, indeed ! But whatever may be 4 some- 
time,’ I have answered you to-night with perfect 
frankness.” 

Before he could reply, Dorrice came out of the 
house toward them, and the flush on her cheeks might 
have been stolen from the very pink of the apple- 
blossoms. 


CHAPTER XIX. 


DORRICE CROPSEY. 


HE Mavis household kept a long holiday that 



1 summer. Lenox took up the old girlish life 
as naturally and heartily as though the years and the 
world had not come between, and wrought their 
changes in her. She visited all her old haunts, in 
company with her uncle, or young Mavis, or Dorrice. 
She was off every morning with Dainty, among the 
hill roads. They all went on frequent drives, too, 
for even Mrs. Mavis was persuaded into joining the 
others, and the party would return merry and hungry, 
in the twilight, to their late suppers. 

Mr. Apthorp vastly enjoyed the settling down for 
the summer, in the softly-lined home-nest from which 
he had taken his niece. He had a natural pride in 
showing her friends how the result justified his wis- 
dom, though the separation had seemed so cruel at 
the time he proposed it. 

Ben Mavis had his pride, too — of a different sort. 
It had been powerful enough, long ago, to resist all the 
strength of his young passion. It had made him 
scorn to take advantage of Lenox’s youth, and igno- 
rance of the world, when, had he pressed his suit, the 
chances were all in his favor. 


802 


DORRICE CROPSEY. 


303 


That time was passed now. Lenox was no longer 
an inexperienced girl. She had seen the world ; she 
was acquainted with men ; she could weigh him in 
the balance with others. 

But it was the old pride, at bottom, which still held 
young Mavis silent. He knew that the name Lenox 
had given him expressed the real nature of her feel- 
ing for him from the beginning. It must be the same 
to the end of their lives. No tie of marriage could 
change the eternal nature of things. He knew per- 
fectly that he would have an advantage over every 
other suitor in the tender associations of their youth 
— in the passionate gratitude with which she regarded 
him. But he saw clearly that, if Lenox Dare con- 
sented to be his wife, it must be with doubtful, half- 
reluctant heart. His own manliness, his feeling of 
what was due to himself, recoiled from a union such 
as theirs must be. He had a conviction, too, which 
grew stronger in their daily intercourse, that Lenox, 
if ever she married, should choose a man of 
different temperament from his own. This was not 
her fault — not his. It was simply the result of their 
original constitutions. But Ben Mavis knew there 
was a side of Lenox’s nature with which he could 
have only a partial sympathy. He could not bring to 
some of her moods the stimulus and companionship 
so precious to such a woman. A certain intellectual 
separation must always exist between them. A 
smaller or less generous nature would not so frankly 
have admitted the truth to itself. Ben Mavis did it 
without the slightest feeling of^ humiliation. Was he 
to accuse his fate because he was not artist, poet, 


304 


LENOX DABE. 


genius of any sort ? His business was to do his own 
work in the world — to take his birthright thank- 
fully, and make the best of that. But he knew 
that a secret sense of his failure toward Lenox Dare 
would poison his bliss, if she were his wife. The 
skeleton would always be in his closet — the fear lest 
some other man could have been to her something 
more and better than it was in his power to be. The 
blood flushed his cheeks at the thought of all the mis- 
erable doubts and jealousies which might follow in 
the train of that haunting dread. How clearly he 
saw — how sternly he reasoned ! And all the while 
his young manhood’s passion throbbed in his heart — 
pleaded in his thought. But he saw that it was best 
for Lenox, best for himself even, that he should be — 
what she had called him — the name that had hurt 
him more than any blow. Thank God, he could fight 
his battle alone — not even his mother knew ! 

It was an unutterable joy — at times an infinite 
pain — to have Lenox about the house — so close, 
and yet so far apart in his life ; but Ben Mavis trod 
his hard road that summer without flinching. 

One day Tom Apthorp went over to Cherry Hol- 
lows. He set out without confiding his intention to 
a soul. He had a curiosity to see the home where his 
niece had passed her childhood — the greater, per- 
haps, because he never ceased to hold himself respon- 
sible for its loneliness and hardships. 

The yellow house by the turnpike had disappeared. 
Mr. Apthorp learned from the neighbors that it had 
been burned to the ground one night, nearly eight 
years before. The Cranes had barely time to make 


DORRICE CROPSEY. 


305 


their escape. Abijah had died suddenly, a few months 
later. His wife had returned to her old home. 

That night Lenox’s uncle told her where he had 
been — what he had learned. 

44 1 should have asked you to accompany me,” he 
said, “ only I feared the effect which those old scenes 
might have on you.” 

She hesitated a moment, before she answered, with 
a little tremble in her voice : u I think I could have 
looked on them, Uncle Tom, and faced all they must 
have revived, so you were by my side.” 

But he thought he had done wisely to go alone. 

The next day, which was the last of the summer, 
Lenox happened to be in Dorrice’s room. The former 
had been a good deal moved by what her uncle had 
told her the night before. Visions of Cherry Hol- 
lows had haunted her dreams that night. Old mem- 
ories clung around the morning. Her heart was un- 
usually tender toward all lonely, orphaned young 
creatures, such as she herself had been. 

Dorrice sparkled and fluttered about her visitor. 
The girl’s archness and quaintness — all her pretty 
graces of speech and manner came to the surface in 
Lenox’s presence. 

The latter was unusually silent that morning. She 
gazed, with pleased eyes, at the auburn- tinted hair, at 
the young face, with its blooming color and soft 
curves. The two had grown very familiar, very fond 
of each other. Indeed Dorrice had owned to Lenox 
that she fell in love with her that night she came 
home, and stood under the hall lamp. 

The girl suddenly came to her visitor’s side, 


306 


LENOX DARE. 


dropped on a stool at her feet, crossed a pair of round, 
white arms on her lap, and said, rather gravely : 
“ You are thinking about me, Lenox. I see that in 
your eyes. Tell me about it.” 

Lenox leaned forward and stroked the uplifted 
face. 

“ I was thinking, my dear,” she said, “ that my 
heart was glad to see you so happy this morning — 
so sheltered from every harsh wind of life. O Dor- 
rice, I know how the world looks when one is out 
in it, lost and alone ! I know how long the way 
seems now.” 

Dorrice’s puzzled look recalled Lenox to herself. 
The girl had been told next to nothing of those 
painful facts which antedated Lenox’s coming to 
Briars wild. 

“ Never think again of what I said just now,” 
resumed Lenox, after a little pause. “ I want to 
talk about yourself, dear — to tell you how you 
remind me of birds and butterflies, of sunbeams, 
and all beautiful, happy, unconscious things.” 

At that speech a sudden change came over Dor- 
rice ; the fair cheeks flushed ; the lips of the reddest 
rose-bloom trembled. Then she burst into a pas- 
sion of weeping. 

“ What is the matter, Dorrice ?” cried Lenox, in 
amazement. 

“ That is precisely what you all think of me,” 
sobbed Dorrice. “ I am no better in the eyes of any 
of you, than a year-old baby, who must be indulged 
and petted to any degree, but who is not capable of 
a thought, a care, a sorrow of its own. I tell you 


DORRICE CROPSEY. 


807 


it isn’t true,” she continued, with passionate resent- 
ment. “ I am not a bird, a butterfly, or any other of 
those happy, senseless things, to which you choose to 
compare me. I am a woman, and have my own 
burdens to carry — my own sorrows to — ” Some- 
thing checked the indignant utterance at this point ; 
she laid her head in Lenox’s lap, and sobbed again. 

Lenox bent over her in dismay. She stroked the 
auburn head. Some hidden grief lurked, after all, in 
the flower of this young life ! 

“ I wouldn’t hurt you for the world, Dorrice,” she 
said. 

“ There is no need you should tell me that, Lenox.” 
The girl lifted her flushed, tear-stained face. “ Do 
forgive my folly, but you surprised me into it. You 
only said what you — what all the others believe !” 
and again the indignant bitterness crept into her 
voice. 

“ Dorrice,” said Lenox, softly, “ is this trouble 
anything that I can help ?” 

A wild look came into Dorrice’s *eyes. A flood of 
scarlet stained her cheeks. 

“There is nothing anybody can help,” she burst 
out. Then she sprung to her feet, glancing around 
her in a frightened way. An open book lay on the 
table, close at hand. When Dorrice caught sight of 
that, she started and stared at Lenox a moment, like 
a creature driven to bay. She made a movement to 
close the volume, then she drew back, as though she 
feared to attract her companion’s notice. 

She made an effort to recover herself. 

“ Do forget my foolishness !” she cried, with a 


808 


LENOX DARE. 


little hysterical laugh. “ If you will excuse my rude- 
ness I will run away for five minutes, and be back 
again — myself !” 

Lenox sat still, after the girl had gone, greatly 
troubled over what had passed. Suddenly, and not 
in the least thinking of what she was doing, she 
bent oyer the open page, on the table. The next 
moment she was reading Tennyson’s “ Dora.” Her 
eyes glanced along these words : 

“ But the youth, because 
He had been always with her in the house, 

Thought not of Dora.” 

Lenox had seen the look, with which the girl turned 
from the open page to her face. That look held 
Dorrice Cropsey’s secret ! With a flash of woman’s 
intuition Lenox’s thought leaped to the truth. Dor- 
rice’s secret was her love for Ben Mavis ! 

While the two young women were having this 
talk Mr. Ap thorp and Ben were having another, as 
they returned from a sharp canter over the hills. 
Indeed, the elder man got into the habit of telling 
his thoughts to the younger, this summer. The more 
he saw of his host, the more he found to admire and 
trust in the brave, manly young fellow. But Lenox’s 
uncle, with all his wordly wisdom, never dreamed that 
his coming to Briars wild had destroyed the dearest 
hope of that young life. 

Ben’s impression on meeting Mr. Apthorp, the 
night of his return, very much resembled Lenox’s 
feelings when she saw Mrs. Mavis. It was not, 
merely, that the man had grown older, but it struck 
young Mavis that there was an air of failing strength 


DORRICE CROPSEY. 


809 


about him. As in Lenox’s case, the first impression 
had partly worn off. It recurred to him, however, 
during the talk that morning, in which Lenox’s uncle 
rather surprised young Mavis with his confidence. 
The naturally reticent man laid open his plans for 
the future to his companion. He deplored the neces- 
sity which would compel their return to Europe in 
the autumn. He had, it appeared, entered into some 
business relations in England, where his presence could 
not be dispensed with. He expressed a determination 
to wind up his affairs there as soon as possible, and 
return to his native land to spend the rest of his days. 
He had a fancy to settle down near his birthplace 
in some quiet corner, where he could listen to the 
sound of the seas which had sung him to sleep in 
his boyhood. 

After this the speaker alluded to a nearer plan, on 
which he had set his heart. He wanted his neice to 
see something more of her own country — to have a 
glimpse of its famous summer-resorts, before they 
sailed. The trip, which he did not intend should 
occupy more than two or three weeks, would take in 
Niagara and Newport, Saratoga and the White 
Mountains. Their pleasure would be greatly enhanced 
if young Mavis, his mother, and Dorrice would ac- 
company them. This proposal took Ben completely 
by surprise ; but Mr. Ap thorp pleaded his point with 
his usual skill, and parried every objection which the 
other raised. 


CHAPTER XX. 


A LAST TALK. 

I T was almost three months later, that Ben Mavis 
and Lenox Dare came out once more on the 
piazza for a walk. It was to be their last, for a long 
time. The next day Lenox was to leave Briarswild. 
It was a dreary November night. Its winds lashed 
the withered grasses, and moaned through leafless 
branches. 

It seemed now to each but a day since they had 
their first walk here, in the June night, with the stars 
overhead, and the summer greenness around them ; 
and now Lenox was going away, for only a year or 
two at farthest, her uncle said. But Ben remem- 
bered he had said a good deal the same thing when 
she went away before. 

He listened to her talk now — to her regret at 
going away ; to her longing to see the snows once 
more cover the hills that watched around Briarswild. 
She went back tenderly over all the memories of the 
summer — of the autumn, for Uncle Tom had carried 
his point. They had all gone on the trip of nearly 
a month among the mountains and to the sea-shore. 
Even Ben Mavis — despite certain drawbacks — had 
enjoyed it all. 

310 


A LAST TALK. 


311 


Lenox suddenly stopped talking, her thoughts 
going to Dorrice Cropsey. The girl never had a sus- 
picion that another had surprised her secret. Many 
trifles, light as air, had strengthened Lenox’s con- 
viction. After all, she reasoned, there was nothing 
surprising in the fact. It was, indeed, the most likely 
thing in the world to happen. Who could know the 
brave, manly, handsome young fellow, and not love 
him ? But it never struck her as singular that she 
did not — in Dorrice’s way, at least. 

Lenox Dare was, at heart, a romantic woman. The 
secret she had surprised had a great interest for her. 
It gave Dorrice a new sacredness in her eyes. She 
felt a yearning pity for the girl, now she knew what 
lay at the heart of that young life. The more she 
reflected on it, the more she became satisfied that this 
azure-eyed, sweet-souled maiden was the one wife 
in the world for Ben Mavis. Where could he find 
such another ? she asked herself. She was half-pro- 
voked at Ben’s dullness in not blessing the kindly 
Fates which had brought such a woman to his side. 
She was actually jealous for Dorrice. She saw, too, that 
the girl had judged rightly. Ben had not the slight- 
est notion of falling in love with her. He was really 
fond of her. But it was in much the same way that 
he would have been of his sister Janet. He was never 
tired of Dorrice’s playful brightness, of her quaint, 
arch talk ; he enjoyed the sight of that rosy, sparkling 
girlhood about the house. But it all ended there. 

Dorrice’s heart had given her true insight, Lenox 
thought. The truth lay in that bit of poetry. Ben 
saw the girl only in the common, every-day lights of 
household life. 


812 


• LENOX DARE. 


“ They are too close together,” Lenox often said, 
musing about the pair, not dreaming how Ben Mavis 
had said the same of themselves. 

Meanwhile, Lenox did her best for Dorrice. With 
a woman’s endless tact, she drew out the girl’s pretty 
ways of look, and speech, and manner. She always 
managed to have Dorrice in the foreground when Ben 
was by. She repeated the girl’s speeches to him, 
praised her beauty, her sweetness, her artless nature. 
Ben listened and assented to all this, with a frank 
heartiness that half-amused, half-provoked Lenox. 

As they walked around the piazza, in the silence 
and darkness, she was debating with herself whether 
she could, by any means, serve Dorrice? Would it 
be wisest to speak ? She shrank from meddling with 
so delicate a matter; and yet* — and yet — she was 
going away — there was nothing more she could do ; 
and Dorrice’s face would come up again, with the 
look in it she had seen that day, when she turned 
toward her from the open book. 

At last she glanced up ; she saw Ben’s eyes shin- 
ing on her through the darkness. 

“ What have you been thinking of all this time, 
Lenox?” he asked. 

“ Have I been silent so long ! I was thinking of 
you, Ben.” 

“ Of me, Lenox ?” 

“Yes; 'of something you said to me that night 
when w'e took our first walk here, after my return. 
I did not half like a speech you made then ; I like 
it still less now.” 

“ I cannot imagine what you mean, Lenox.” 


A LAST TALK. 


313 


“You said you were resolved never to marry.” 

“ Did that vex }^ou ?” 

“ Just that. If you had been no more than twenty 
— if you were in the habit of saying what } r ou did 
not mean, I should have thought nothing of such a 
speech. But I saw you were serious, and I cannot 
let you drift into old bachelorhood without making 
an effort to rescue you from so forlorn a fate. Ben,” 
speaking rapidly and eagerly now, like one who fears 
the ground she treads on ; “I wish you would let 
me choose a wife for you !” 

“ You choose a wife for me ! You, Lenox !” 

“ 1 , Ben. Do you think anybody else could do it 
more wisely, with a tenderer thought for your hap- 
piness ?” 

She spoke with a little hurt tone now. 

“Who would the woman be, Lenox?” 

She laid her hand on his ; they paused in their 
walk ; he bent his head to hear. Her courage almost 
failed her, she spoke the name in a little, fluttering 
whisper : “ Dorrice Cropsey !” 

They began to walk again. He did nob speak. 

After she had waited awhile, she spoke again, say- 
ing all manner of tender and beautiful things of Dor- 
rice Cropsey. It is doubtful how much young Mavis 
heard, but he was listening to the soft, vibrant voice, 
and thinking how soon it would be silent for him. 

There was a terrible pang — a joy, too, that was 
like a pain, in that thought. It had sometimes 
seemed to Ben, that, if Lenox did not soon go away, 
he must leave Briarswild. There are burdens which 
the strongest man cannot always bear. 


814 


LENOX DARE. 


When she paused at last, he spoke : “ Dorrice 
Cropsey is all you say ; yet I do not think you 
would have me take a wife to please you, Lenox ?” 

“No, Ben. I could not ask that, but I hoped — ” 
Lenox paused there, with a sudden dread lest she 
should betray Dorrice’s secret. 

The rain had now began to fall. A wet gust sud- 
denly drove under the piazza. Lenox shivered a 
little. Then voices inside called to them. A great 
fire of maple and hickory was in full blaze up the 
black, cavern-throated old chimney. They were 
determined to keep Lenox’s last night at Briarswild 
with warmth and cheer. 

“ How abominably selfish I must be to keep you 
out here alone with me this last evening !” said Ben, 
and his tone implied there was no more to be said. 

“ Poor little Dorrice !” thought Lenox, as they 
entered the house. “ I meant it all for the best — 
but I am not sure — my speaking may have done you 
more harm than good !” 


CHAPTER XXL 

A RACE FOR LIFE. 

R OBERT BERESFORD mounted his horse in 
the chilly gloom of a November evening. 
The last glimmer of twilight had disappeared in the 
west. The friend, with whom he had been dining, 
stood at the gate. 

“ I hope yon have some sort of weapon about you, 
in case of attack, Beresford ?” he said. 

“Nothing of the sort, Jack,” replied the other, 
as he wheeled his horse around. “We are not in 
Italy, and the woods about here are not the haunts 
of brigands.” 

“ But they are of tramps — a less picturesque va- 
riety of the genus, certainly. On the road between 
here and your house, are some lonely places — just 
the sort of ground for any skulking villain, who 
wouldn’t mind shooting you for the chance of the 
money you might have about you. You had better 
let me bring out my pistol.” 

“ No, thank you, Jack. It has come in my way, 
during the last dozen years, to deal with a good 
many desperate characters, but I never brought cold 
steel to enforce my arguments.” 

“Well, have your own way. I know you have 

315 


316 


LENOX DARE. 


nerve enough, old fellow, to face an army, single- 
handed. But when it comes to dealing with a high- 
wayman, all the pluck in the world won’t serve a 
man as well as a good revolver !” 

“ This savage talk might amaze me, Jack Leith, if 
I didn’t know you were at bottom one of the softest- 
hearted fellows in the world ! But I tell you assas- 
sins don’t lurk in New England woods. I am not 
foolhardy ; I shouldn’t go about defenceless if I 
imagined I was running risks. Jack, dear old fel- 
low,” suddenly changing his tone, “this visit has 
done me good. I feel as though our talk had taken 
fifteen years off me. It has carried me back to our 
old tramps in Italy, and our winter in the Roman 
villa, and those rare old days in the Vatican gal- 
leries.” 

“ I said then you were the best fellow in the world, 
Beresford. I hold my old opinion still.” 

The last speaker, as he stood by his friend’s horse, 
showed a slender, medium-sized figure, and the out- 
line of a thin, dark face, with pleasant, eager eyes. 
He and Beresford had been college chums, and had 
studied together at Rome. A strong friendship — 
the growth of years of intimacy — existed between 
the men. Jack Leith had won a name and a mod- 
erate fortune with his brush. On his return to Amer- 
ica, three years before, he had purchased a pleasant 
little villa, half a dozen miles from his friend’s resi- 
dence. The two, who had so many tastes in common, 
beside the old friendship, to draw them together, 
saw each other frequently. 

“ I had rather you, than any living man should 


A RACE FOR LIFE. 


BIT 


say that, Jack Leith !” Beresford replied to his friend’s 
remark. “ Will you be over next week, and bring 
Gertrude with you, and the little girl? She won’t 
find her old playmate there ; but we will do our 
best to amuse her. You can imagine, Jack, it pulled 
at my heart to let Phil go away. But I knew a 
couple of years abroad now, would do more for him 
in the languages than ten, at a later period. So I 
compelled myself not to stand in his way ; but I miss 
the young rogue every time I enter the house !” 

“ I can well believe that. If his absence would only 
drive you to j T our easel! Ah, Beresford to think of 
a fellow of your splendid promise turning Philis- 
tine !” 

“But was it ‘splendid promise,’ Jack? There 
was the rub ! If I had had no question in my own 
mind, be sure I should not, at the critical moment, 
have decided for the Philistine.” 

Jack Leith knew more than any other man of the 
circumstances which had at last inclined his friend 
to a business career. He had always regarded it as 
the most shameful waste of original power. In his 
secret soul he believed that, had he been at hand, 
when the decisive moment came, his influence would 
have turned the scale. 

He was silent so long, thinking of all this, that 
Beresford added : “ If a man does what seems his 
highest duty, he may be mistaken, but he cannot be 
remorseful.” 

“ But you are a rich enough man, in all conscience, 
by this time. Why do you go on sacrificing to Mam- 
mon ? What hinders you from returning to your 
first love ?” 


818 


LENOX DARE. 


“ That is easier said than done, as you would know 
if you had tried to serve two masters, and one was 
Art and the other a partnership in a great Iron 
Firm !” 

“ I should cut the partnership with a vengeance !” 

“ Perhaps not — such a good-hearted fellow as you 
are — if you saw that a great deal depended on your 
sticking to the helm — that if you let that go sud- 
denly a good many lives and fortunes might go to 
wreck also. When a man has been in business for a 
decade, he is likely to find a thousand interests bound 
up with his own, and he can’t always bring himself 
to sacrifice others for his own pleasure.” 

“ He cannot, if the man happens to be — my old 
chum ! But we won’t waste words. It always raises 
my fiend of a temper to think of what has gone to 
waste with you, Beresford !” 

“ Perhaps it won’t prove to be all waste when the 
great audit is made up.” And if there was a little 
sadness in the tones, there was something, too, that 
rung like victory. “ Good-bye, Jack. You are a good 
fellow !” 

“ Good-bye, Beresford. God bless you ! ” 

The two men grasped hands in a way that empha- 
sized their last words, and then horse and rider dashed 
up the road. 

It was three years since Robert Beresford had gone 
away, in the budding Maj^-morning, to find his dead 
wife in the hollow, and his motherless boy sitting by 
her, with grave, puzzled eyes, and the excited crowd 
around them growing still as he came up. 

Of the horror of that time, of the bitter grief that 


A RACE FOR LIFE. 


319 


followed, it is impossible to write. I cannot choose 
but think that over the blackest night of such a man’s 
grief some stars of faith and hope must shine. 

If the thought ever flashed across him, that his 
great sacrifice mattered now little to her for whose 
sake he had made it, it was pleasant to reflect that 
her tender feet had always kept the primrose paths. 
The fair, delicate woman had never faced any of the 
bitter weather of poverty while she walked by his 
side. 

Yet, for months that followed his wife’s death, it 
seemed to Robert Beresford that all incentive to work 
of any sort had vanished. 

His fortune was now ample for his own purposes, 
but partly because his long-neglected gift took its own 
revenge, and the old visions — the joy and the beauty 

— did not revisit his imagination ; and partly because 
his easel had such a cruelly tender association with 
that last talk before Stacey went away from him for- 
ever, he could not bring himself to take up a brush. 

Perhaps it was well for him at this time, that a sud- 
den financial crisis intervened. The senior partner 
had an attack of apoplexy, and was too broken to at- 
tend to business. Beresford’s energies rallied to meet 
the new strain on them. The house, largely owing 
to his foresight and skill, weathered the storm, and 
when a time of comparative leisure came, the heart 
of his youth — for lie was only a little past thirty-five 

— had rallied once more. 

Life called to Robert Beresford — drew him with 
her own subtle influences on many sides. He began 
to feel the old hankering for palette and canvas ; and 


320 


LENOX DARE. 


he executed some work in landscapes which his friends 
praised ; averring that he had not lost the old trick of 
firm drawing — the fine handling of color; but the 
pictures afforded little satisfaction to the painter. 

Had Robert Beresford followed his own inclinations, 
he would, probably, any day during the last three 
years, have retired from business. He remained in 
the firm for the reasons he had assigned to his friend, 
but he still looked forward to the time when his part- 
nership should close, half wondering whether that 
event would make him a happier man, and half be- 
lieving it, when he said to himself : 

“ My nature is subdued 
To what it works in, like the dyer's hand.” 

Philip’s departure, to spend some time with his aunt 
in Germany, had cost his father’s heart the sharpest 
wrench it had known since the boy’s mother left him ; 
but he would not sacrifice Philip’s future to his own 
pleasure. 

The stillness of the autumn night was almost op- 
pressive. All the sounds of summer-life — the voices 
of insects, themovement of leaves, the whirring of light 
wings, had vanished. A breath of wind shivered oc- 
casionally through the bare branches. Overhead a 
few stars would glimmer doubtfully between gray, 
bulging masses of cloud, and then disappear. A wild, 
sad sky brooded that night over a bare, frost-smitten 
desolate earth. 

Robert Beresford had chosen the shortest route 
home. It carried him through a mile of dense, lonely 
woods. He had just entered these, and was going at 
a smart gallop, when he suddenly drew his horse up ; 


A RACE FOR LIFE. 


821 


he had heard a cry. In a moment he heard it again. 
It was a little louder this time, perhaps a little nearer, 
but there was no mistaking it. It was a cry for help. 
It seemed half smothered at times, like the voice of 
one in mortal peril, and then it broke through the 
night — a wail of anguish and terror. 

The sound evidently came from the right. The 
woods, pierced in every direction by footpaths, lay on 
the edge of the town, and when the rider entered 
them he had left the last farm-house half a mile be- 
hind him. 

Robert Beresford did not pause for a second thought. 
All the man’s generous instincts aroused, he dashed 
ahead at that cry of human need. He knew the 
ground perfectly. Dark and lonely as it seemed now, 
with the bare, black branches stretching weirdly over 
him, he had ridden that way when happy summers 
draped them with all the life and joy of leaves. In 
any case, the man’s nerves were a stranger to 
fear. Had the place been utterly new to him he 
would have gone in search of that cry. He spurred 
his horse deeper into the thick shadows, then he drew 
up suddenly and sprung off, plunging into a little 
footpath on his right. Once or twice he heard the 
cry again. Each time it grew nearer. 

There was a sudden trampling of heavy feet. Three 
figures sprung out of the darkness, and confronted 
him. He heard a sound of oaths, the click of a pistol. 
In an instant it was all clear to him. The cries for 
help had only been a ruse to decoy him into the woods. 
The wretches had succeeded too well. Robert Beres- 
ford took in the situation, saw his whole peril 


822 


LENOX DALE. 


in a flash. He stood there, unarmed and helpless, at 
the mercy of three desperate men, who probably had 
made up their minds to shoot him ! 

He was a brave man, as I said, but his heart gave 
one bound, and stood still. A sudden faintness went 
over him. He remembered afterward how he thought 
to himself : “It can only be death at the worst, and 
if it has come now, I will meet it like a man ! ” 

Then he spoke, expecting that a shot would put an 
end to his words. The men were so close to him that 
he caught the evil glitter of their eyes in the dark- 
ness ; he felt, rather than saw, the powerful, hulking 
figures. 

“ You want to rob me,” he said. “ It will be easy 
to do that. But you will make nothing by killing me.” 

His voice had just the same quiet key it had when 
he addressed some angry crowd of hands at the 
works. It would probably have had its effect now, 
had not the men been maddened by drink. 

There was another outburst of oaths — a pistol 
fired by an unsteady hand, for the murderous aim 
missed the man standing there in the darkness. At 
that instant the clouds drifted apart, and a large, low 
moon shone through a thin, gray veil of mist. The 
pale light broke through some oak boughs, and out- 
lined the heavy, slouching figures, huddled close to- 
gether, and the form — taller and slenderer by con- 
trast — of the man who stood there, awaiting his doom 
at the hands of a trio of desperate, drink-maddened 
villains. 

The brightest glimmer of that pale, swift, vanish- 
ing moonlight suddenly touched Robert Beresford’s 


A RACE FOR LIFE. 


323 


face. The next moment there was a cry — a sort of 
3 7 ell of recognition, amazement, horror ! One of the 
men sprung forward and struck down the pistol of 
his comrade. 

“You shall kill me first, you dog!” shouted a 
hoarse, frenzied voice, and a moment later it was yell- 
ing : “ Run for your life, man, or these devils will 
have it ! ” 

Quicker than thought Robert Beresford turned. 
The sudden bewilderment of the villains, at the de- 
fection of one of their number, had given him a 
chance. With a blind instinct he fled now, as a man 
can only flee when his life hangs on seconds. The 
darkness and his knowledge of the woods aided him. 
He heard the pistols again, the horrible oaths, the 
yells of baffled rage, the trampling of heavy feet, and 
he knew his pursuers were on his track. But those 
few moments had been everything in his favor. He 
darted from the footpath into the road, he leaped on 
his horse. The creature had been frightened by the 
firing, and, an instant later, would have rushed off 
without her rider. She dashed furiously ahead now. 
It was a life-and-death race through the bare, old 
woods, between the glimpses of the moon. 

An hour later, Robert Beresford was in his library. 
He lay on the lounge to which he had dragged him- 
self on his return. His strong nerves had had a ter- 
rible shock. He had faced the peril as only a brave 
man could, but the reaction had come, and he was 
terribly shaken by what had passed. 

The scene in the woods had not occupied more than 
three minutes. The man saw that, when he looked 


324 


LENOX DARE. 


at his watch. His escape was almost a miracle. 
There could be no question of the villains’ deadly in- 
tent. They must have been on the watch — have 
learned by some means that he would go through the 
woods that night. Their original purpose, no doubt, 
was to rob him ; but drink had roused all their bad 
blood, and in their mood of savage frenzy they were 
bent on killing him. 

One of the highwaymen had recognized him. 
There was no mistaking that cry. It came from the 
man’s soul. What did it all mean ? There were 
men — hardened, desperate — for whom Robert 
Beresford had done kind deeds — to whom he had 
spoken cheering, helpful words. Had one of these 
men caught sight of him, and remembered ? 

Then the man, lying on the lounge, and asking 
himself these questions, began to wonder whether it 
was not all a dream. The whole thing had been so 
sudden, so stunning ! Had he dropped asleep and 
had a touch of nightmare ? 

Not quite sure, in his own mind, he attempted to 
rise from the lounge. Then a terrible pain shot 
through his right arm. His wrist was quite stiff. 
Every movement of his hand tortured him. Beres- 
ford remembered now what he had quite forgotten — 
that the foremost of the villains who rushed out of 
the dark, had dealt him a heavy blow with his pistol. 
Evidently the scene in the woods had not been a 
nightmare ! 

When the surgeon came to examine the wrist, he 
found some of the small bones broken. Beyond the 
present pain and inconvenience no serious harm had 
been done. 


A RACE FOR LIFE. 


325 


The next morning policemen searched the woods. 
They found nobody there. At the point where the 
tragic scene of the night before had occurred, the 
grass had been trampled by heavy feet, the under- 
brush broken and scattered. Several bullets lay 
among the leaves. 

Before noon Jack Leith heard of the attack, and 
rode over in great alarm. He listened, with white 
lips, but almost without a word, to his friend’s story. 
When all was told, he did not once say, “ I was right, 
you see ! ” or, “ You ought to have taken my pistol, 
Beresford ! ” 


CHAPTER XXII. 


ANOTHER. 

L ESS than a year after Lenox Dare left Briars- 
wild, the sad tidings of Mrs. Mavis’s death had 
crossed the sea. The cheery, active spirit long up- 
held the waning strength. The close of the bright, 
helpful life was almost painless. 

“ It will hurt Lenox,” the mother said to her son 
in their last • talk together, “ because she was not 
with me at this time. Tell my little girl I charged 
her not to grieve. It was best so. I was growing an 
old woman, Ben, my boy, though you didn’t see it. 
I don’t fear the dying, now it is close to me; only 
I’m sorry for you, dear — you and Dorrice.” And 
she turned to the tearful young face that had been 
bending over her bedside through all these days. 

Some thought, which she did not speak, struck the 
sick woman at that moment. She lifted her hand 
feebly, and stroked the girl’s. Then she laid those 
soft fingers in her son’s palm. 

“ Be good to Dorrice ! ” she said. 

He bowed his head ; he could not speak at that mo- 
ment. The next day he was head of the Mavis home- 
stead. 

Less than a month afterward Dorrice Cropsey had 

826 


ANOTHER. 


327 


a letter, in an unknown hand, from the West. Her 
brother — her last relative — was dead. 

¥ )ung Mavis, coming on the girl suddenly, found 
her in the first passion of her grief. 

“I am all alone — all alone in the world!” she 
said, as he entered the room. 

It was a cry of hopeless agony. It went to his 
heart. She stood before him, holding out the letter, 
her eyes strained, the roses withered out of her 
cheeks. 

Ben half led, half carried her to a seat. He took 
the letter from her cold hands and glanced over 
the contents. His own heart, almost broken with its 
recent grief, yearned over the stricken girl. 

“ I will take care of you, Dorrice,” he said, and 
. his manly tones were soft with pity. “ You shall 
never be alone in the world ; you shall have a home 
here, so long as I live.” 

Did she hear what he said? He could not tell. 
He only saw the wild, tearless eyes staring at him. 
In a moment she broke out again with that wailing 
cry : 44 1 cannot stay here. I was going to John. 
But he is dead, and now there is no place for me in 
the world ! ” 

Those words — the outbreak of agony and despair 
— let in a sudden light on Ben Mavis. He had never 
given a thought to Dorrice’s going away ; he had 
taken for granted that she would stay on as before ; 
but he saw now the impossibility of her doing so. 
Her own delicacy had warned the girl. Some inti- 
mate friends of the family had, for the young people’s 
sake, remained at the homestead after Mrs. Mavis’s 


828 


LENOX DARE. 


death. They would leave in the course of the next 
month. Without consulting Ben, Dorrice had made 
up her mind to go away at the same time. She in- 
tended to join her brother. Under that fair, girlish 
guise, was a brave heart, and a spirit that would nerve 
itself to any duty. But the strong arm on which she 
could have leaned, had suddenly failed. In all the 
wide world there was no shelter for the white, smitten 
creature before whom Ben Mavis stood that morning, 
with unutterable sorrow in his face. 

Of a sudden the look flashed across him which 
he had seen in his mother’s eyes, the day before she 
left him. He was overwhelmed with grief at the 
time, and it had no meaning for him, beyond what 
lay on the surface. He had not recalled it since ; but 
he knew now what must have been in his mother’s 
dying thought. It had been in Lenox Dare’s, when 
they walked together that last night, in the Novem- 
ber gloom. 

Dorrice was hardly aware of his presence. She 
let him lead her to the lounge, not knowing what 
he did. And now she sat there, bolt upright, her 
wild e} T es staring into vacancy. If he could only 
bring some life into that marble face ! 

But he must be sure of himself, before he spoke. 
He saw, with his clear, strong sense, how all the fu- 
ture of both might hang on the next few minutes. 
He would act wisely for Dorrice, for himself. He 
thought of all she had been at Briarswild — of her 
sunny nature, her winsome ways. He thought what 
a double desolation would fall upon the house when 
the bright presence and the sweet young face should 


ANOTHER. 


329 


have vanished from the silent old rooms. He remem- 
bered Dorrice’s devotion to his mother through those 
last days, whose darkness still hung about him — 
his mother who had died, wishing that Dorrice might 
take the place she left vacant in her home — in her 
son’s heart. 

Ben Mavis thought, too, in that hour of the woman 
across the sea — of all she had been — of all she 
could never be to him. 

“ But if another woman, fair and sweet, and bowed 
to the earth by her sorrow, would lift up her head 
once more — if he could persuade her to come and 
sit by the lonely hearthstone of his life, and be a 
blessed, consoling presence there — ” His heart 
thrilled at that thought. All his strong, generous 
manhood yearned toward the maiden. In her weak- 
ness and grief she grew dear and sacred in his 
eyes. 

Ben Mavis had walked across the room for three or 
four minutes. But there are crises, when heart and 
brain live years in moments. 

Young Mavis turned at last and came back to Dor- 
rice. He had made up his mind. 

“ Dorrice,” he said, taking her cold hands in his r 
and looking into her bright, tearless eyes, “ the home 
here is not more mine than yours. I cannot let }~ou 
go away into the wide, lonely world. What would 
you do there, you little, soft, fragrant flower of a wo- 
man? You have been my greatest help and comfort 
through all my bitter grief, though I have never told 
you so — never even thanked you. And now your 
trouble has come, it is my turn. Will you let me try 


330 


LENOX DARE. 


what I can do for you ? Will you give me the right 
to share your sorrows ? I will be good to you, Dor- 
rice. I promise you that, as I promised my dying 
mother. Let me see you look up ; let me hear you 
say we will stay together — we will comfort each 
other! ” 

The suddenness of her grief had almost stunned 
her. She stared at him with bewildered eyes. He 
must make his meaning quite clear to her. 

“ I ask you, Dorrice Cropsey, to stay here as my 
wife ! ” 

At those words she rose to her feet. The slow 
color came into her pallid cheeks. It took her a min- 
ute or two to realize the question which his lips had. 
asked, and which his eyes, still holding hers, repeated. 

But the joy that came so swift on grief, was half a 
pain. She did not speak. A look answered him — 
such a look as only once in a lifetime, heart and soul 
can flash into a human face. It told Ben Mavis what 
he had never dreamed before ; what Lenox had 
learned long ago ; what his mother’s dying eyes had 
caught a glimpse of. 

“ My poor little girl ! ” he said, and he put his arms 
around Dorrice. 

All this had happened before Lenox had been a 
year from Briarswild. Mr. Apthorp found the settle- 
ment of his affairs in England a more complex matter 
than he had anticipated. Had less been at stake for 
his niece, he would have left the business in the 
hands of his lawyer’s, and saved himself a good deal 
of wear and tear at this time. 

The tastes of the two were not extravagant ; but 


ANOTHER. 


831 


their life abroad had made heavy draughts on the for- 
tune which Mr. Apthorp had brought from the East 
Indies. All this, however, he had sedulously kept 
from Lenox. He had his own reasons now for wishing 
to place his property in secure and easily managed in- 
vestments. His niece did not imagine with what al- 
most boyish eagerness her uncle looked forward to 
their return to his native land, or how keen was his 
disappointment as he found his hope delayed from 
month to month. He had a slight cough, too, and 
they had twice to winter in the south of France. 

The tidings of Mrs. Mavis’s death could not fail to 
overshadow Lenox’s last stay abroad. She had lost 
the only mother she had ever known. 

A little later, came tidings from Briarswild of the 
engagement of the young people, and of their mar- 
riage, a month later. 

Nobody ever knew with just what feelings Ben 
Mavis laid down Lenox’s letter of tender, joyful con- 
gratulations. It had been his fate — perhaps his 
misfortune — that he loved her in a way that he never 
could love another woman. But in all the years to 
come he never doubted that he was a happier man 
with Dorrice Cropsey for his wife than he ever could 
have been with Lenox Dare. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 


THEIR OWN HOME. 

I T was almost two years since Lenox and her uncle 
went away, the second time, from Briarswild. 
They were in their own land now, under their own 
roof- tree. They had been there less than a month ; 
yet it had begun already to seem home to them, in 
a way which no other place could — not even the 
Mavis homestead. 

The two had returned a little before midsummer. 
They stayed awhile at Briarswild. The place was 
vacant, the voice silent, for which Lenox had always 
looked and listened first. But the old home was full 
of a new happiness. Ben and Dorrice had not been 
married a year. How fitly she took her place as the 
young mistress of the fair old homestead ! The glow 
in her cheeks, rivaled her maiden bloom. The glad- 
ness in her eyes outshone the girlish archness. She 
w r as one of those women whose mission it is to make 
home blessed and happy. She reminded one of that 
beautiful old myth of Vesta. It seemed as though 
the hearth goddess must have smiled on Dorrice from 
her birth — must have blessed her with all household 
gifts and graces. Ben, watching his young wife’s 
face as it shone about the house, or sparkled and 

332 


THEIR OWN HOME. 


333 


dimpled by his side, said to himself : “ What should 
I do without you, Dorrice ?” Sometimes he repeated 
the thought to her. 

And Dorrice would answer, with a little quiver 
in her voice : “ What should I have done without 
you, Ben?” 

An English gentleman, who had lived for several 
years in America, crossed the sea with Mr. Ap thorp 
and his niece. He was returning to his family, from 
whom he had been called by the sudden death of a 
relative. They would all go back to their native 
land, after he had disposed of a home which he had 
built during his residence in the States. The house 
was an English cottage. Its owner described it as a 
bit of picturesque, rural architecture, in the midst of 
some pretty landscape gardening. 

It appeared that this house stood less than a mile 
from the beach, and within two of the town where 
Mr. Apthorp was born. For the last years he had 
been looking forward to settling down under his own 
vine and fig-tree as the consummation of all his earthly 
hopes and ambitions. He was so attracted by his fel- 
low-passenger’s description of his home, that he agreed 
to visit it within a fortnight after they should have 
set foot in America. 

All this time Lenox was kept in profound ignor- 
ance of her uncle’s plans. She rallied him occasion- 
ally on his hobnobbing with the Englishman. She 
was, like everybody else, quite in the dark when 
her uncle, the week after his return, made some 
excuse for leaving Briarswild. 

He found the Englishman’s place all that its owner 


334 


LENOX DARE. 


had described. Indeed, the house and the grounds 
were so well adapted to Mr. Apthorp’s tastes and re- 
quirements that, as he strolled over them, he half fan- 
cied some kindly genii must have created the whole 
for his satisfaction. 

The day after he visited the place the bargain 
which made him its owner was concluded. 

Tom Apthorp afterwards planned a surprise for 
his niece. During the remainder of the sum- 
mer, which she passed at Briarswild, he never alluded 
to his new purchase. One day, early in the autumn, 
when they had come for a brief visit to Boston, he 
drove her a few miles out of the city, along the 
pleasant beach-roads, and at last brought her to the 
cottage-grounds. Lenox followed him, surprised and 
curious, when he insisted on her alighting at the 
door. He led her into the house. She had no sooner* 
crossed the threshold — wondering what he was 
about — whom they were going to see in this pretty 
bower, among green terraces, and lovely foregrounds 
of lawn and shrubbery — when he put the keys into 
her hands, and saluted her as the mistress of the 
castle. 

That was six weeks ago. Since that day the two 
had lived under this roof. From the first, it had 
been simply a “ coming home” to them. 

The house had been built after the pattern of an 
English country-house. Its color was a pale gray, and 
it stood, broad and rather low, among the honeysuckles, 
the ivies, and creepers, that half covered it. The 
grounds were not extensive, but sloping terraces, and 
twisting paths, and skillful grouping of shrubberies, 


THEIR OWN HOME. 


335 


made the impression of wide areas and winding 
vistas. Pretty rustic-work was scattered about. The 
flowerbeds and knolls were a mass of gorgeous, late 
summer bloom. From the upper windows were fas- 
cinating glimpses of the sea, two miles away. 

Inside nothing seemed wanting. The former own- 
ers had gathered into their sea-side nest, as they 
loved to call it, everything that could add to its 
home coziness or comfort. The rooms were few, and 
large and sunny, with all sorts of bright little nooks 
opening out of them. The furnishings were simple, 
but in perfect taste ; the cool, gray tones brightened 
everywhere with flecks of color ; with borderings of* 
blue, or rose, or carmine. 

It was no stately home to which Tom Apthorp 
had, at the end of their wanderings, brought his 
niece. His means would not admit of his doing that ; 
his tastes had never inclined to splendor. But it was 
to her an idyllic spot — this gray nookery, hedged in 
green — where she could listen to the voices of the 
sea in stormy weather, and where an atmosphere 
charmed with home rest and happiness surrounded 
her. 

They hung the walls with their own pictures and 
engravings. There was ancient china, there were all 
sorts of lovely and curious things — gathered in their 
long life abroad — to arrange about the rooms. Lenox 
had a woman’s delight in this sort of work. It was 
an utterly new sensation to find herself the mistress 
of her own house. 

Her uncle, watching her with quiet enjoyment, as 
she moved about the rooms, arranging the draperies, 


836 


LENOX DARE. 


disposing her treasures, would say : “ How naturally 
and gracefully you do it, my dear ! One would sup- j 
pose you had been at this sort of thing all your life. 
Are you a born housekeeper, after all ?” 

And Lenox would laugh happily and say : “ It is 
only an instinct, Uncle Tom. All women have it. 

I never had a fair chance at indulging mine before. ,, 

And now the two sat together one evening, in the 
last of October, just six weeks after Lenox had 
first crossed the threshold. The windows were open ; 
the night was warm, as though it lingered on the 
skirts of summer. The Carnival of the autumn had ; 
begun, and the coppices and woods and roadsides were 
ablaze with color. The land held its brief day of 
splendor as though no winter and no north wind, a 
little way off, were biding their time. A low, red- 
dish moon looked in through the clumps of ever- j 
greens. A dim light burned in the corner of the 
wide, rather low-studded sitting-room. Its predomi- 
nant crimson made it the brightest room in the house. 
Its new owner said that it always made him think of 
a great red jewel. He liked to fancy how all that 
warm color would flame against the northern winter, i 
The two always came here to pass their evenings. Its 
lounges, its easy chairs and all its graceful furnishings, 
made it seem like the very heart of the dainty home. 

Lenox, seated a little way from her uncle, wore a 
white dress that night. When the evergreens stirred, 
the moonlight glimmered in her hair, or over the 
hands lying idly in her lap. In the dim light she 
made a central radiance. In the silence her uncle 
watched her. 


THEIR OWN HOME. 


33T 


“ Uncle Tom,” she said, speaking her thought at 
last, “ can you conceive of two happier human beings 
than you and I are to-night ?” 

“ If there should be, you and I would not envy 
them, Lenox.” 

“ Envy them? When I can look out on that big, 
jostling, Vanity-Fair of a world, from such a little 
Paradise as this !” 

“ I like to hear my little girl talk in that fashion 
— to know she is so happy J” 

“ You are the dear magician, Uncle Tom, who has 
made my good fortunes. I am only half afraid that 
I shall awake some morning and find that house and 
grounds were only a bit of enchantment — that the 
whole has vanished into thin air !” 

He laughed. “ You may dismiss all thoughts of 
that sort, my dear. I have given the foundations a 
thorough examination. They are solid English work. 
They will last a couple of centuries.” 

“ Then they will serve more purposes than ours. 
But you cannot be surprised that the whole thing is 
a little suggestive of Prospero and his broken staff, 
and drowned book. Remember how you brought me 
here — what a surprise it all was ! It was not 
in the natural order of things. It had more the air 
of romance and of magic than of common daylight ; 
and yet — ” She paused there. 

“ It struck me just then,” she continued, in a 
slightly lower tone, “ that all the best things in my 
life had come in this way — with an air of the mar- 
vellous about them. You were a great surprise to 
me, Uncle Tom.” 


338 


LENOX DARE. 


“ I have not the least doubt of that my dear !” 

Something in his tone made her regret her last 
remark. 

“ Such a great, blessed, unutterable surprise !” 
she added, laying her hand on his own. 

He held it a moment before he spoke. 

“We have put into a snug little harbor, after our 
wanderings, Lenox. I have a curious feeling .about 
it, too. Half the time I forget that I am an old 
man. I walk among these scenes, and ramble about 
the rocks and shore off there, and am just a care- 
less, merry-hearted boy again. I can understand 
now the feeling which brings a man to end his 
days where he began them.” 

This last remark gave Lenox a vague uneasiness. 

“ How glad I am,” she said, “ that you and I 
are come to anchor, as you call it, on the spot 
where you and dear mamma were born ! What a 
fresh interest and fascination your stories will have 
for me now that I can stand in the very places where 
they all happened ! We will watch the summers in, 
and the winters out, in this fairy bower ! I shall 
never want to leave it, except to visit dear old Briars- 
wild.” 

“ Summers and winters !” repeated her uncle to 
himself. “ I used to talk of them in that fashion, 
and they seemed an infinite procession to me.” 

“ Why should they seem anything else now ?” 
asked Lenox, in a little impatient tone. 

“ My dear,” he answered, “ do you know that I 
am an old man ?” 

“ I know that there is nothing that exasperates 


THEIR OWN HOME. 


339 


me so much as having you call yourself one ! There 
isn’t the slightest suggestion of old age about you.” 

44 What, not with my gray poll and snowy beard !” 
he said, ga}dy. 44 Don’t you see I might sit for a 
picture of old Time with his scythe ?” 

She laughed, resolved to treat this remark as a jest. 

44 Twenty years from this time — not eight, as 
you once said to me, Uncle Tom — I will answer 
your question. But I don’t want to talk of a re- 
mote future. I am in love with the present — with 
life and happiness to-night.’” 

The man gazed at the glowing speaker, as she sat 
before him with that witchery of moonlight in her 
hair. 

44 Life and happiness are good,” he answered. 44 1 
cannot find it in my heart to say of them to-night 
what the wisest of men once did, 4 This also is 
vanity !” 

44 Uncle Tom,” said Lenox, in a tone of decided 
irritation, 44 I do believe you are half an old Greek 
at bottom. We are so happy to-night you fear lest 
the gods should envy us, and you look serious, and 
make these solemn reflections, in order to placate 
them.” 

44 No, Lenox, it is not Greek superstition — it is 
an old man’s insight, this time.” 

44 There it goes again ! Uncle Tom, why will you 
cling so obstinately to this fiction of your old age?” 

44 Is it wholly a fiction, Lenox, when I am a good 
deal past sixty? I have at least reached the point 
where, as Dante says, 

‘ Each behooves 

To lower sails, and gather in the lines ?’ ” 


340 


LENOX DARE. 


“ Sixty is a mere bagatelle !” replied Lenox. “ Col- 
onel Marvell was more than twenty years older 
than you are, and I never remember his calling him- 
self an old man.” 

“ A- man’s years are not always the test of his 
age. The Ap thorps are not a long-lived race. You 
may hold out better, Lenox. You have a good 
deal of the old Dare stock in you.” 

As he made this remark, Lenox turned suddenly 
and looked at her uncle. Was it the flickering 
moonlight which gave him that thin, shadowy look ? 
It struck her now for the first time. 

“ Uncle Tom,” she asked, suddenly, “are you feel- 
ing quite well ?” 

“Tolerably so ; only a good deal of the old spring 
has gone out of me. That long illness in India is 
at the bottom of it. I have held out bravely through 
all these years ; but I never quite got over the ter- 
rible shaking of that time.” 

Lenox listened, with a shadow stealing over her 
joyous mood. Twice in her life the cold finger of 
death had touched her heart. Once, when a little 
child, she saw Colonel Marvell lying before her with 
his still, white face ; and again when the mournful 
tidings from Briarswild crossed the sea. The one 
sadness that had underlaid these happy weeks had 
been the thought that Mrs. Mavis’s pleased eyes 
could never glance about these rooms — could never 
follow her darling with loving pride about her new 
home. 

“ Uncle Tom,” said Lenox, coming over suddenly 
and laying her hands on his shoulders with the old 


THEIR OWN HOME. 


841 


gesture, which still made him think of a dove’s white 
wings settling there, “ have you been to see a doc- 
tor of late ?” 

“Yes, my dear.” 

“ When was it ? ” 

“ Before we left England.” 

“Did he say anything — O, Uncle Tom — I am 
afraid to ask ! ” 

“ You will not be so weak as that, my child. There 
is nothing startling to tell, either. The doctor only 
said — what I knew before — that the old life in 
India, and the sickness with which it closed, had 
strained the timbers a good deal — ■ in plain English, 
that I must take care of myself.” 

“ Uncle Tom,” burst out Lenox, as a cold fear 
touched her heart, “ if you were to leave me, I 
should be all alone in the world. I could not live 
if you should — ” She stopped there. 

“ Say it out bravelj r , my darling — if I should die ! 
W e will not be afraid of a word. And in any case I 
may outlive you — you, sitting there in the flower of a 
womanhood whose glowing bloom it seems no frosts 
of time can ever touch.” 

“ But if you should go first — if I should be left 
here all alone ! ” and she clung to him and shivered. 

“ And if I went last, what should I do without my 
little girl? But when our turn comes — yours or 
mine — I hope the one who is left on the hither 
shore will have grace and courage to say, 4 It will be 
but a little while. It is the will of God.’ ” 

She had thrown herself on an ottoman at his feet, 
and laid her cheek on his knee. 


342 


LENOX DARE. 


“ Now hold up your head, my dear, and don’t let 
me see you a shade less glad, because I am not quite 
as spry as I was forty years ago.” 

In all these ways he tried to comfort her — to 
soothe her fears. He partly succeeded. But, look- 
ing hack afterwards, Lenox knew that the shadow 
which had fallen across the threshold that night had 
never quite vanished from it. 

The next week the Mavises came. Happy times 
followed their advent. The soft, pensive loveliness 
of the Indian summer hung long that year around 
the New England coast. Mr. Apthorp brightened 
wonderfully at this time. It was all owing to his na- 
tive air, he insisted. He was never tired of escorting 
the young people about the country, and among the 
scenes of his boyhood. In the evenings they would 
gather in the sitting-room, and while the falling leaves 
made a melancholy rustle outside he would fascinate 
his little audience with stories, more delightful, his 
niece thought, than those with which he used to 
charm them when he first came to Briarswild. 

The visitors were almost as pleased with the new 
home as Lenox herself. 

“ How perfectly it all suits you ! ” Ben would say, 
with something unfathomable in the gaze that fol- 
lowed her moving about in her new role of hostess. 

“ What a noble man Ben was — what a sweet wo- 
man Dorrice ! ” Lenox was always thinking to her- 
self as she watched the pair. “ How perfectly they 
suited each other ! ” 

A great happiness shone under the long-fringed 
lashes of Dorrice’s azure eyes. She had told Lenox, 
long before the story of their sudden betrothal. 


THEIR OWN HOME. 


343 


“ Such a night as that was !” she said. “ Such a 
morning as broke into it !” 

One day, when Dorrice had been amusing her hus- 
band and Lenox with all manner of quaint, arch 
speeches, she suddenly glided off on some errand, 
leaving the pair alone. Lenox noticed the tender 
glance with which Ben followed the retreating fig- 
ure. Then he turned and met Lenox’s eyes. She 
laid her hand on his. 

“I was right, Ben,” she said. “ Dorrice was the 
one woman in the world for you !” 

He knew she was alluding to her talk the night 
before she went away from Briarswild. 

“ Yes, I think she was, Lenox,” he answered. 

But though the two women were always talking 
about him, Lenox never told Dorrice of the secret 
she had surprised one day. And in her husband’s 
heart there was one hidden door to which Dorrice 
Mavis never had the key. 


CHAPTER XXIV. 


ALONE. 

T HE Mavises stayed twice as long as they had 
intended. Just after they left the first snows 
came. Mr. Apthorp had been dreading these a 
little, not for his own sake, but for his neice’s, after 
all her years of summers ; but she looked out on the 

“ Beauty o’ersnowed and bareness everywhere,” 

from her warm, bright -colored nest, and was as happy 
as any bird that would sing the next June in. 

Old friends and neighbors of the Apthorps, who 
still lived in the vicinity, came to see them. They 
often had guests from the city, only twelve miles 
away. But the two, with all their social instincts, 
could not be drawn away from their own roof-tree 
that winter. Was it altogether because they were 
so happy as to have no longing for the great world 
outside, or because, as Lenox would have said, Uncle 
Tom was not quite strong this winter ? 

She was forced at last to admit this to herself. She 
hung about him with an anxiety pathetic to those 
who understood it. But she did not see, as strangers 
did, how his step grew a little slower, and the lines 
in his thin face sharper day by day. A little 41 hec- 

344 


ALONE. 


345 


toring” cough, that set in during the autumn, got 
deeper and hoarser ; and when March came blus- 
tering in, with wild skies and hitter winds, Uncle Tom 
could barely crawl down stairs to the grate fire, by 
which he sat all day. He was still quite his old self, 
talking and jesting at times, even about his turning 
into such a mollycoddle ; but there was a look in his 
eyes, when they followed Lenox, which he took good 
care she should never see. He let her cheat her 
heart by inventing all sorts of slight causes for his 
illness — perhaps he tried at times, for her sake, to 
deceive himself. 

“ This horrible climate keeps up your cough, Uncle 
Tom !” she would say, when there was no longer any 
disguising the truth. “ Of course it . was madness 
for you to think of weathering one of these New Eng- 
land winters, after your twenty years in India. We 
must spend our next winter in Florida.” 

“ I believe the climate is at the bottom of it all,” 
he sometimes answered. “ Evidently it is too rough 
a coast for my old bones.” 

No doubt he partly made himself believe it, but 
after awhile he ceased to say that. 

One evening, in the last of March, she brought him 
the newspaper. He had been unusually feeble for 
several days. This one he had spent on the lounge, 
listening, when he was not talking with Lenox, to 
the muffled thunder of the waves. A high wind, which 
was blowing carried the sound far in shore. 

“I like to hear it,” he said to Lenox, in the morn- 
ing. “The boom of the tide brings such a flood of 
old memories with it.” 


346 


LENOX DAEE. 


To-night, when she handed him the paper, he 
waived it aside. 

“ No, thank you,” he said. “ I don’t feel like 
reading just now. Sit down here, Lenox, and let 
us have a talk together.” 

She threw herself on the low ottoman, by the great 
easy-chair, in which he was reclining. In all her 
talk, she had treated his illness as a kind of jest. 
That had hurt him more than any tears, because he 
knew what unacknowledged ache and fear lay under 
the lightness. 

“We are on the edge of April, Uncle Tom,” she 
said. “ We shall have milder weather now, and you 
will soon be out again.” 

“ Lenox,” said her uncle, softly, but very gravely, 
“ the climate is not the trouble with me !” 

“ Don’t say it is anything worse than that, Uncle 
Tom !” she cried, in a voice which made it doubly 
hard for him to say something which he had been 
all that day making up his mind must be said. 

“ Lenox,” he asked, after a little pause, “ do I look 
like a man who is going to get well with a little 
milder weather ?” 

She turned, without a word, and looked at him. 
It seemed as though something compelled her. She 
saw the white head, lying against the crimson of the 
easy-chair ; she saw the sharpened features, the gray 
shadows on the face, the bright, sunken eyes look- 
ing at her with unutterable love and pity. As she 
gazed, her lips grew pale. She stared on with a kind 
of fascinated terror, while the truth, from which 
heart and brain recoiled, forced itself upon her. 


ALONE. 


347 


“ O Uncle Tom — Uncle Tom !” It was a cry of 
exceeding agony. 

His hand was on her head, his tender, restraining 
voice in her ears. 

“ Is that the way to take it, Lenox ? the way for 
my sake ?” 

She stared about the room, like a creature driven 
to bay. Cold waves from the sea of death seemed 
to roll in upon her. 

“ It will kill me, Uncle Tom,” she cried out, in 
sharp, broken tones ; “it will kill me to be left with- 
out you ! ” 

“ I know it seems like that now ; but if God has 
willed that you should live, Lenox — if He has some- 
thing in His world that cannot be done without 
you—” 

She burst into a terrible sobbing. She was not 
given to weeping ; but now a tempest shook the 
very roots of her being. She tried several times to 
speak, but always ended in a sharp cry : “ My heart 
will break ! It will break !” 

Her uncle did his best, with soothing words and 
soft reproofs, to calm her. At last she grew more 
quiet, and sat at his feet, pale and still, with the cold 
at her heart. 

“I had expected better things of my little girl,” 
he said. “ If she fails me like this, I cannot say — 
what I have on my mind to-night.” 

“ But you may get well, after all, Uncle Tom ; ” 
clutching wildly at a hope which her heart yet 
belied. 

He shook his head. “ No, Lenox ; let us not try 


348 


LENOX DARE. 


to deceive ourselves. The end may not be so near 
as I sometimes think; but — it is coming !” 

She looked in his face — and she knew. 

“ I should not mind, Lenox,” he went on, in a 
little while, “if it were not for leaving you all alone. 
I feel a good deal as Charles Kingsley, about 4 kindly 
death’s setting one off on a new start somewhere 
else.’ I see where I haven’t made the best of my 
chances here.” 

“ Think what you have made me — what you have 
been to me, Uncle Tom !” 

44 1 shall be glad to tell your mother — my poor 
Evelyn — if I see her first, how you said that. I 
shall have to confess to a long, terrible neglect, 
Lenox !” 

44 Don’t, Uncle Tom, don’t !” 

In this way the talk he had been dreading, opened. 
It went on for hours ; so that it would be quite 
impossible to write all that was said that night. 
Into the pauses of the talk, came the clamor of the 
wind — the far-off voices of the sea. The soft light 
shone upon the white, sharpened face of the 
man, on the snowy hair and the glittering beard, 
and on the beautiful head of the woman at his feet. 

44 1 might have put this talk off until another 
time, Lenox,” said her uncle. 44 This old hulk of 
mine may hold out through a good many storms 
yet ; but I have some things to say while my mind 
is quite clear. You would not want me to wait for 
dread of hurting you, and then feel it was too late ?” 

Her head moved a little in answer. 

He began then, quite steadily and calmly, to speak 


ALONE. 


349 


of her future without him. His whole talk showed 
how carefully he had forestalled everything ; how all 
his plans had been made — even to the smallest 
details — with the nicest regard to /the ease and com- 
fort, the needs and tastes he understood so thor- 
oughly. 

“ I am sure you will like best to live on here, Lenox, 
in the home where you and I have passed these 
happy months — it would be pleasanter now than 
to go back — even to Briarswild ?” 

She answered him with a glance. 

“ I shall not leave you a rich woman, Lenox, but 
you will have a sure income of a few thousands. 
And this will keep you very comfortably, with the 
two or three servants you will want to carry on the 
house. Should you require a man’s counsel or help 
— you will always have young Mavis to rely on — 
a better friend than most brothers.” 

He went over all the details of her life, dwelling 
upon each in a way that showed how his wisdom and 
thoughtful care had provided for every emergency. 

And afterward he said some tender, solemn words 
which she who heard will remember longest of all. 
“ I know how it seems to you now, my darling. You 
think it will be too hard to bear — that it must 
kill you, too ! I know your heart will be cruelly 
torn, and that it must have its own way for a while, 
but I charge you, when I am gone, not to grieve 
for me long and hopelessly. Open all the doors of 
your soul. Let all the life and beauty of the world, 
where God holds you back for awhile — at the farthest 
it can only be a little while — draw you softly, com- 


350 


LENOX DARE. 


fort you tenderly ! I have a feeling, too, that there 
is some work for you to do yet in the world — that 
somebody may need you ; somebody for whose sake 
you will be glad that you lived, when I went away 
and left you ! And when you are happy, you will 
look back and remember this talk, and say, ‘ Uncle 
Tom was right ! ’ ” 

This was a part — only a very small part — of all 
that he said to Lenox that night ; and in all the 
pauses of his talk she heard the cries of the wind 
outside — the distant voices of the sea. She heard 
them always, when she remembered that night, and 
how she sat there, silent and stunned, and listened 
until it was long past midnight. 

In the weeks that followed Uncle Tom rallied a 
good deal. He moved once more about the house, 
with a halting step, it is true, but he was quite his 
old self, full of interest in what was going on around 
him, telling his stories, and having his jests with 
Lenox. 

Her heart rallied, too. The cold shadow that had 
fallen on her soul grew lighter. She hoped, after 
all, that Uncle Tom was not going to die. She still 
clung to her old fancy that the summer, which was 
slowly coming that way, would work wonders for 
him. She never alluded to the talk they had together 
that night. Neither did her uncle. 

One morning, early in May, she went out for a 
walk. She was gone longer than she expected. The 
blue haze upon the distant hills, the soft, pink blush 
of the budding maples, the tender green which was 
yet hardly more than a dreamy mist about the boughs, 


ALONE. 


351 


and a nameless life and thrill and scent in the air 
drew her on into quiet old roads and sunny lanes. 

She came home at last, with a glow in her cheeks, 
a gladness in her eyes. She went straight to the sit- 
ting-room. Her uncle was in his easy-chair, just as 
she had left him. 

Lenox had found a small robin’s nest in a lane, 
where the winds had shaken it from the trees. In a 
sunny corner of a little coppice, half a mile away, 
she had come across a few blossoms of trailing arbu- 
tus, and some ferns that had begun to push their first 
plumes of delicate green through the dead leaves. 
She had placed the soft, pink-white of the blossoms 
against the featheiy-green of the ferns, and laid the 
whole in the little hollow of the bird’s nest. 

She came toward the easy-chair. 

“ Uncle Tom,” she cried, “ see what I have brought 
you ! The first blossom of the new year in a nest 
of the old !” 

But he did not move to the glad cadence of her 
voice. 

He sat with his back toward her. She came closer 
to him. 

“ Uncle Tom, are you asleep ?” she asked softly, 
and she leaned over him. 

He had “ gone to sleep !” But it was a sleep 
from which no cry of love or agony could awake him ! 


CHAPTER XXV. 


JESSIE DAWES. 

H APPY birds were singing in full-leaved trees 
the songs of another June. The land was 
flushed with roses. The scent of all the flowering 
things was in the summer air. 

Lenox Dare stood on the side porch that morning, 
and drank in with delighted senses all the life, and 
song, and beauty about her. It was now more than 
two months since she had come in, joyous and glow- 
ing^rom her walk, to meet that Spectre whose noise- 
less footfall had crossed the threshold in her absence. 
Others had told her of one piercing cry — of finding 
her, a little later, clinging in frozen, tearless agony to 
the dead man ! 

These last months seem sometimes like a day ; 
sometimes like years. The hours of agony — the cruel 
heartache — the sense of loss and loneliness — the 
feeling that all life’s good had vanished - — that noth- 
ing remained worth caring for — oh, my reader, you 
who know what these mean, need not be told how she 
sorrowed for her dead ! 

Yet, on the whole, she had been surprised to find 
herself so calm — so happy, even, at times. Her 
nature was sound to the core. She could not be in 
352 


JESSIE DAWES. 


853 


the world and not be, as she had said, “in love 
with life.” Her soul turned as naturally to light and 
hope as larks to the skies, as flowers to the sun. 

After her uncle had been laid in the old Ap thorp 
burial place, Ben Mavis, who had hurried to Lenox, 
wanted to take her back with him to Briarswild. 
But he could not move her. 

“ I must learn to live here without him,” she said. 
“ It was his own plan. I see now it was the best, 
the wisest. In a little while I shall get used to it. 
But if I should go back with you now, Ben, to the 
dear old home, I should never be able to return !” 

“ It will be a great disappointment to Dorrice !” 
he said. 

“ Tell her to have patience with me ; I will come 
after a little while,” Lenox answered. 

So he went home without her. 

She lived on in the old way, just as though Uncle 
Tom were only gone for a little while. She con- 
stantly reverted to his wishes, and endeavored to 
carry out all his plans as though he were alive. 
Indeed, she often said to herself : “ I can’t make it 
seem that Uncle Tom is dead !” 

She said it to herself now, as she stood on the 
porch. Even the thought of that fresh mound, which 
the June’s soft fingers were clothing with green, 
could not fill her soul with gloom. She remembered 
how often Uncle Tom had said that the fact of this 
world was, to him, satisfying evidence of the exist- 
ence of another. He was somewhere, she believed, 
in a life, larger, fuller in every sense, than even this 
fullness of joy and beauty about her. 


854 


LENOX DARE. 


While she was standing there, she caught sight 
of the gardener among the tulip-beds. That reminded 
her of her resolve to take a drive that morning. It 
would be the first since Uncle Tom left her. She 
had put it off from day to day. This morning the 
going alone did not seem so hard. She went down 
the walk to tell Donald to have her pony-carriage at 
the gate within half an hour. 

Donald Brae was a big-framed, stalwart Scotchman 
who had remained on the place when the first owner 
sold it. Mr. Apthorp had taken a liking to the man, 
and made him promise he would never leave his 
niece’s service. Donald was a thorough Scotchman, 
capable and trustworthy, with the native shrewdness 
and dry humor of his race. He had married a little, 
buxom, good-tempered, Scotch lassie, who now, with the 
assistance of a single maid, managed affairs indoors 
as perfectly as her husband did those outside. 

Donald’s tall, large-boned figure lifted itself from 
the tulip-beds, as Lenox approached, and stood still 
before the sea of gorgeous, variegated color. The 
man had been cutting tulips and arranging them in 
a magnificent bouquet. 

44 They’re for the new hospital, ma’am,” he said, 
speaking English with a decided Scotch accent. 
4k There’s a young girl lyin’ there, the doctor says, 
who can’t hold out many days. She’s had a rough 
time of it in life ; I thought maybe the sight o’ the 
flowers might cheer her a bit. The doctor promised 
to stop for them when he drove by ag’in. It’s hard 
to go out o’ the world, with no one of your own kith 
and kin to stand by, and say a kind word to you.” 


JESSIE DAWES. 


355 


Lenox thought of her childhood, and how all that 
might have been her own story. 

“ Poor child,” speaking half to herself. “ It is a 
hard fate, as you say, Donald.” 

The Scotchman looked at his young mistress. 
The first time he saw her she had seemed to him 
— so he told his wife afterward — the most beautiful 
thing he had ever set eyes on. He had grown to 
regard her now with that sort of loyal devotion which 
some old fighting Highlander, among his ancestors, 
must have felt for the chief of his clan. 

“ Burns has some lines, ma’am,” he said, “ that are 
al’ays singin’ in my brain. Poetry does that after it’s 
got into a man’s heart first.” 

“ What are the lines, Donald ?” asked Lenox, look- 
ing into the shrewd, wrinkled face of the gardener. 

Donald repeated them as none but a Scotchman 
could — with the broad vowels, the real northern 
burr : 

“It’s hardly in a body’s power 
To keep at times frae being sour 
To see how things are shared!’* 

As Lenox listened, the old chamber at the turn- 
pike, where she first read those words, came up to 
her. Other memories could not fail to crowd thick 
on that one — memories of the two days when heart 
and brain had been haunted by a double horror — 
a dread for herself — an agonizing memory of the 
great poet whose genius and whose death are alike 
Scotland’s glory and her shame. 

She turned away without a word. Donald watched 
her, with sorrowful eyes, as she went up the walk. 


856 


LENOX DARE. 


Perhaps his talk, bringing back scenes of which she 
had never been able to think quite calmly, was the 
cause of her change of mood. All its joyousness 
seemed to vanish in a moment. Her heart gave a 
sudden cry for its dead. She looked about her, and 
thought how Uncle Tom would have rejoiced in this 
perfect morning. Why was he not here to-day ? 
Why could he not have lived a little longer ? What 
was all the pomp of the summer to her now ? She 
could not enter the house, carrying such thoughts, 
such pain, with her. She must get away from her- 
self — into some other life, some other sorrow. She 
remembered what Donald had been saying. She 
turned and went back to the tulip-beds. 

“ Donald,” she said, “ I will take those flowers to 
the hospital.” 

In less than two hours from that time, Lenox drew 
up before the new building. It was a little more 
than three miles from her own home, and was a plain, 
rather bare-looking structure, of red brick. Only a 
few of the rooms had yet been opened to patients. 
One of the nurses took Lenox to the sick girl’s cham- 
ber — a small room, which opened out of a great, 
bare, unfurnished apartment. The girl was on a low 
bed, near the open window. Everything was plain 
and comfortable about her, but for all that, it seemed 
a bare, lonely place for one to lie and watch, day 
after day, the sunshine creep along the gray walls. 

The nurse left Lenox at the door. She entered so 
softly that the girl caught no sound. The first thing 
she heard was a voice at her bedside, saying : “ My 
dear, I have brought you some flowers this morn- 
ing.” 


JESSIE DAWES. 


357 


The next moment Donald’s great bouquet lay on 
the white coverlet. 

At that sight the girl feebly lifted her head. She 
gave a little cry ; she reached out a pair of thin 
hands, and held them over the flowers ; her hungry 
gaze devoured the heap of bright, varied colors. The 
dews still sparkled in the bells of crimson and gold. 

“ They are tulips !” she cried, in a voice of amazed 
delight. “ They used to grow in Grandma’s front 
yard.” 

While she spoke, Lenox’s glance had taken in the 
small head, with the mass of bright young hair, the 
sharpened features, the blue- veined skin, the dark, 
hollow eyes that burned with preternatural bright- 
ness. 

The sick girl turned now and gazed at her visitor. 
In her delight over the tulips she had forgotten the 
presence there. She saw the beautiful face at her 
bedside. She saw thelook of pitying tenderness in the 
great brown eyes — the smile on the lovely, unsteady 
lips. She had been thoroughly taken by surprise. 
Her mind was a good deal shaken, too, by weakness 
and suffering. That cloud of gorgeous color had fallen 
so softly, that beautiful face had appeared at her 
bedside so suddenly, that she half-fancied there must 
be something supernatural about it ! 

Could the old stories about angels be true, after 
all, and had one of them appeared at her bedside ? 

At that thought the hectic deepened in the hollow 
cheeks. She gazed at her visitor with bright, awe- 
struck eyes. 

“ Who are you ?” she asked, under her breath. 


358 


LENOX DARE. 


“ Somebody who has come to bring } r ou these flow- 
ers, my child, and tell you how sorry she is to find 
you lying here sick — somebody who is ready to do 
anything in the world for your comfort. or pleasure. 
My dear little girl, I hope you are glad to see me !” 

The, last words wavered a little, for the hectic glow, 
the sharpened face under the shadow of its dark hair, 
the bright, solemn gaze went to Lenox’s heart. 

“ Yes, I am glad.” The speaker’s eyes went wist- 
fully from the flowers to the face that had a greater 
charm for her. “You are just — a lady?” 

“ Why do you ask that — what do you take me to 
be?” 

Lenox had drawn a chair to the bedside, had 
seated herself, and was leaning over the girl. 

“ I thought — perhaps — I was not quite sure, but 
you might be an angel !” 

There was a little silence. Lenox could not speak. 
She stroked the thin hand. They heard the birds 
singing outside. They saw the sunshine lying among 
the flowers, as though it loved them. 

“ What made you have such a foolish thought 
about a mere woman?” Lenox asked, at last. 

“ Because I never knew one who looked and acted 
just like you.” 

“ The world is full of good women — a great deal 
better than I am !” continued Lenox, in as light a 
tone as she could command. “ But I am sure none 
of them could feel more sorry for you, could be more 
ready to help you. What is your name ?” 

“ Jessie Dawes.” 

“ It is a quaint, pretty name — as quaint as my 
own, which is Lenox Dare.” 


JESSIE DAWES. 


359 


“ Lenox Dare,” repeated Jessie. “Was that what 
you said ?” 

“ Yes ; it sounds oddly to you, Jessie ; I fancy it 
does to most people, when they hear it for the first 
time.” 

“ It is an odd name. I like it though. Shall you 
stay a good while ?” 

“ Shall you like to have me, Jessie ?” 

“ Oh, yes. It seems nice to have you sitting there 
in the chair. It seems as though I must have known 
you a long time/’ 

“ That is just the way it should seem. How long 
have you been here Jessie ?” 

“ Only two weeks, but it seems almost forever.” 

“ And has no friend — no relative — been to see 
you in that time ?” 

She shook her dark, little head. 

“ There was nobody to come. I haven’t a relative 
in the world !” 

“ Oh, my poor, little Jessie !” 

That cry came from Lenox’s heart. She was think- 
ing of the time when those words would have been 
true of herself. 

“ I had somebody once,” continued Jessie, drawn 
by that tone into further confidences. “ It was my 
grandmother. She died four years ago. I was only 
fourteen then. We lived in Vermont. I wasn’t much 
more than a baby when papa and mamma died.” 

“ And after your grandmother left you — were you 
quite alone in the world ? ” asked again the pitiful, 
sweet-cadenced voice. 

“ I was all alone. I stayed awhile with some of 


360 


LENOX DARE. 


our old neighbors. They were kind at first, but after- 
ward — things changed — and I saw they didn’t want 
me. So I came to Boston to find something to do. 
In a little while I went into a store.” 

The simple narrative broke off suddenly. Some 
memory stopped Jessie Dawes. In a moment she 
turned to Lenox, speaking in a rapid, excited way : 
“ O lady, you don’t know what it is to be all alone 
in the world — to have nobody to warn you — to 
believe people are just like yourself. Oh, you don’t 
know what I had to learn !” 

“ Jessie,” said Lenox, unspeakably affected, “ I 
was all alone in the world when I was no older than 
you were. I had no home, no friends, no roof to 
shelter me ! My poor child, I do know how it all 
seems — what it is like !” 

When she heard those words, Jessie Dawes lay 
still, staring at Lenox in dumb amazement. Could 
the elegant woman, sitting there in her grace and 
loveliness, looking as though no wind of heaven had 
ever blown rudely across her primrose-paths, have 
known what it was to be a lonely, friendless, home- 
sick orphan girl ! 

“You, lady — you know!” she exclaimed, and 
stopped there. 

“ Yes, my poor child, I know ! There was a time 
once — ” 

Lenox could not go on. The contrast of their 
two fates struck her at that moment so sharply. 

“But somebody — something came to help you 
out of the trouble!” continued Jessie Dawes. “ No- 
body came to help me /” 


JESSIE DAWES. 


361 


Nothing could be so pitiful as those last words — 
none in all her life had ever so hurt Lenox ! 

“You are right, my dear,” she said, when she 
could speak again. “ Somebody did help me — the 
kindest and best people that ever crossed the path 
of a friendless orphan girl. I think God sent them. 
Shall we not think He has sent me to you this morn- 
ing ?” 

At that question, a swift change — half- weariness, 
half-bitterness — went over the girl’s face. 

“ O lady,” she said, “ don’t talk to me about God ! 
He never cared anything about me . He never helped 
me when I was in trouble. If He had, I shouldn’t 
be here now !” 

“O Jessie — Jessie!” It was a cry of pain, pity, 
horror. 

The girl drew close to the edge of the bed. She 
gazed at Lenox with her bright, solemn eyes. 

“ I didn’t mean to shock you,” she said. “ If God 
helped you — if He took care of you, of course you 
must believe in Him. But it is all different with 
me. Perhaps he likes some folks, and doesn’t care 
about others ! O lady,” she broke out, suddenly, “ If 
this God you tell me about had only been half as 
good as you are — half as good as you are !” 

“ Oh, my child — my poor child !” 

There was no rebuke, only a great pain and pity in 
the voice. Lenox Dare could look back on a time 
when she had felt as Jessie Dawes did now. 

The girl went on; ‘'It’s easy for happy folks to 
believe in God. I thought he cared for me once — 
that was before Grandma died. Ah, lady,” she broke 


362 


LENOX DAEE. 


out again, 44 you sit there, looking at me with your 
beautiful, sorrowful eyes — do you think you would 
really believe God cared for you,, if He let you go 
— where He let me !” 

It was one of those awful questions with which 
one soul, in a great strait, will sometimes challenge 
another. 

44 But He does care for you — poor little Jessie — 
because He is your Father as much as He is mine. 
You are His child, as dear and precious to Him 
in your pain and loneliness,, as I am in my health 
and prosperity.” 

“ Do you think that? Do you really believe it?” 
asked Jessie Dawes, with a kind of slow wonder in 
her voice. 44 You look at me as if you did. You 
don’t blame me, either, as all the others would, for 
what I have said. I have heard a great many peo- 
ple talk about God ! Some of them were very cruel 
to me, lady ! I used sometimes to wonder if He was 
like them i” 

44 Like them ! They must have lied to you about 
Him, Jessie !” 

“ That was what I tried to believe — for awhile, 
at least. Afterward, when the worst came, I gave 
up thinking about Him. Why should I care for One 
who showed so plainly He didn’t care for me ?” 

44 But what if all that were a mistake ; what if all 
the time He was caring for you — pitying you, His 
little girl — so helpless, so lonely, so heart-broken — 
in some deeper, tenderer way than ever your dead 
Grandmother could have done !” 

At those words a change came over the rigid face ; 


JESSIE DAWES. 


363 


the pale lips quivered. She turned to Lenox with 
a silent, probing gaze that seemed to go past her face, 
to seek her soul. 

At last the girl drew a long breath. 

“ Miss Dare — was that the name ?” she asked. 

“ Yes, Jessie.” 

“You know I am going to die. When I asked 
the doctor, he would not tell me, but I saw it all 
the same in his eyes.” 

“Did that make you sorry, Jessie?” 

“ N — o. There don’t seem to be anything I 
should want to live for!” 

There was nothing for Lenox to say. Any com- 
monplaces — any poor attempts at consolation, would 
be worse than failures. She only sat still, with the 
pity in her face, and stroked the dry, little fingers 
with her own soft ones. 

After awhile the girl spoke. She addressed the look 
in the beautiful, sorrowful eyes. 

“ I think I should like to tell you all about it 
before I die,” she said. “ I never could talk about 
it to anybody before, but it seems to me you will 
understand.” 

“ You shall tell me anything you want to, Jessie.” 

Then the girl began her story. She spoke first 
of the quiet, little home in Vermont, where she lived 
with her doting old grandmother, and where she 
grew into girlhood in happy ignorance of all the 
• grief and evil in the world. 

Then the old grandmother died. The little, heav- 
ily mortgaged house was sold to pay the funeral ex- 
penses, and afterward there was no more care, or love, 
or happiness for Jessie Dawes ! 


364 


LENOX DARE. 


She found a cold welcome for a time with some 
neighbors ; but her position grew so uncomfortable 
that she finally made up her mind to go to Boston, 
and seek employment. 

The bewildered girl, barely sixteen, found herself 
in the great, jostling city, with no acquaintances, 
except two or three old playmates. One of these 
took pity on her, and secured her a place in a store. 
It was a new life — it was hard work for the girl, 
brought up in the peaceful shadows of the old Ver- 
mont bills. 

The story came suddenly to a pause. Lenox did 
not speak. Again those burning eyes searched her 
face in the silence. 

“ I didn’t know there was a bad man in the world. 
Nobody ever told me !” said Jessie Dawes. 

Lenox gave a half-smothered cry. Those words 
would have precisely described her own case. What 
had saved her from a fate like this girl’s when she 
made her desperate flight from Cherry Hollows — 
what had saved her years afterward, when they 
went away and left her, a young girl, an innocent 
child in all knowledge of the world, to face the peril 
at Hampton Beach ? 

Lenox Dare could never repeat the story, as she 
heard it from Jessie Dawes’s lips that morning. The 
memory of the pale, young face, of the pathetic voice, 
always overcame her. 

It was strange, too, how she would always see again 
the heap of gay flowers, the glancing sunshine ; how 
she would hear again all the birds of the summer 
singing outside, as though the world were as happy 


JESSIE DAWES. 


365 


le now, as in that old Eden, where they sang through 
j God’s first summer. 

, There were several partners in the store where 
Jessie Dawes had secured a place at the lace-counter. 
One of these partners had a guise as honest, a tongue 
as flattering, a heart as false as Austin Kendall ! 

The pretty bloom, the fresh innocence of Jessie 
Dawes attracted this man. He won the confidence 
and gratitude of the lonely child, homesick for the 
green highways, and the pleasant old hills. He 
brightened her life by a thousand little attentions, 
when nobody else cared for her in the strange, crowded 
i city. The end of all this came suddenly. Not sus- 
pecting any evil, Jessie Dawes, one holiday, accepted, 
with a 3'oung girl’s natural delight at the change, 
an invitation to go a few miles out of the city. 
What followed cannot be written here. Vile women, 
and evil haunts, and drugged wine had their share in 
the foul conspiracy. Jessie Dawes, helpless, amazed, 
bewildered, had the horrible fact of her surroundings 
and the real character of him whom she had regarded 
as the kindest and noblest of men, forced on her at 
last ! 

In a few days she made her way back to the city. 
There was nobody to whom the helpless girl could 
confide the foul plot of which she had been made 
the victim. She tried to resume her old life behind 
the counter, in the low attic of her boarding-house. 
But her spirits were crushed, and her health, fragile 
from the first, began to break down. She, believed, 
too, that her betrayer, alarmed lest his fiendish work 
should come to light, and perhaps uncomfortable in 


866 


LENOX DARE. 



the presence of his victim, had used his influence 
to get her out of his sight. She lost her place in 
the store. 

Harrowing details followed — the long search for 
work — the hardships — the times of actual suffer- 
ing — the hunger and cold — the crushing memory 
that underlay all the hardship. 

There were some lights to this picture certainly. 
Kind people had crossed Jessie Dawes’s path — men 
and women had spoken pitying words, and reached 
out helping hands to the friendless orphan girl. But 
for the most part, it was a flinty road over which, 
for more than three years, the young feet toiled, | 
slower and slower. 

At last Jessie’s health broke utterly. A hectic 
cough tore her ; a slow fever wasted her. She found 
a place in a dressmaker’s establishment. The peo- 
ple here showed her kindness — more than anybody 
had done since her grandmother died. After she 
grew worse they brought her to the new hospital, 
which was less than two miles away. 

The doctor and the nurses had taken the best care 
of her. She had nothing to complain of. Only it 
was lonely sometimes, lying there and listening to 
the ‘birds singing outside. Once in a while she won- 
dered if they would sing any more if they knew what 
sort of a world they were in, as she knew ! 

When the silence fell at last, it was difficult to tell 
whose face was the whiter, the girl’s on the bed or 
woman’s who sat by it. Lenox had listened to the 
end with a horror that, had she attempted to speak, 
would have ended in a cry. For it seemed all the 


JESSIE DAWES. 


867 


time her own story — the darker side, the Might- 
Have-Been — to which she was listening. Who had 
saved her? Who, sitting in His heaven, had seen 
and let this girl, innocent and guileless as herself, go 
down to the spoiler ? 

These questions forced themselves upon the shud- 
dering soul of the woman, and she could find no 
answer, she could only see how one fate confronted 
the other, to make the fairer- seem like a cruel par- 
tiality — an infinite injustice ! 

All her life Lenox Dare had believed that God 
had saved her in the straits of her girlhood. Every 
^ day she had thanked him for that, as well as for all 
the ofladness of her lot. But to talk to Jessie Dawes 

I C> 

of God, of His love and Fatherhood, in the face of the 
story she had just heard! 

She rose from her chair ; she was deadly pale ; 
she could not say one word. She pushed open the 
door, with a blind instinct to be alone, and entered 
the great, bare, unfurnished room. How still it was ! 
How the hot sunshine glared on the flooring and on 
the walls ! She remembers that to this day — she will 
remember it to the last hour of her life ; for the 
very foundations of her faith and hope seemed giving 
way in this awful hour — before this girl’s wrecked 
life. What could she say ? what could she do ? 
Life, death — even Uncle Tom’s — seemed now a very 
little thing, with the darkness closing about her — 
with the dreadful question forcing itself upon her 
soul: “ Was God in His world?” 

It had hitherto been an easy thing for Lenox Dare 
to believe this for herself. But what did it avail 


368 


LENOX DARE. 


if she could not find Him — His infinite love, His 
eternal Fatherhood — for another — for the girl lying 
there — her youth blighted, her heart broken ! And 
her life had once been dear to her — her young girl’s 
hopes and dreams as precious as Lenox Dare’s ! 
But these had not saved her. The wolves had found 
her. They had trodden down all the bloom of her 
young years. They had left her to this ! 

Lenox almost resented her own good fortunes. 
What right had she to them ? She had heard people 
talk before, as though thej^ regarded themselves 
special pets and darlings of Providence. What a 
cruel system of favoritism it all seemed ! Should 
she go back and flaunt her own happy, love-sheltered 
life before Jessie Dawes, and tell her God had done 
all that? Should she go back and stand there — as 
she had come away — with dumb lips ? 

During her life abroad Lenox Dare had often been 
thrown into the society of materialists and ration- 
alists. She was quite* familiar with their side of the 
argument. They were sometimes people whose intel- 
lect she respected, whose noble aims she acknowl- 
edged, whose generous enthusiasms for humanity she 
could share. But their awful negations never shook 
her. How man or woman could exist a day without 
hope in a God over His world — an infinite Love 
and Power at the heart of things — was a mys- 
tery to her. But the old arguments would come 
up now, while clamoring doubts and torturing fears 
seemed to grow into the faces of fiends that mocked 
her. 

Lenox Dare could never tell how long she walked 


JESSIE DAWES. 


369 


the room, where the June sunshine lay warm and 
bright on the walls and the flooring. It might have 
been an hour. It seemed like an eternity. She only 
knew the darkness was about her — the horror of 
a world without God I 


CHAPTER XXVI. 


BUT GOD IS. 

J ESSIE DAWES lay quite still after Lenox had 
left her. She was haunted by the memory of 
the white face that had vanished in silence from 
her bedside. She had been greatly excited in tell- 
ing her story. The bright flowers around her had 
a spell that soothed sense and soul. She lay drink- 
ing in their beauty, until she fell asleep. 

The light rustle of garments awoke her suddenly. 
A face, radiant with solemn joy, was standing by 
her bedside ; a voice, with an exultant thrill all 
through its sweetness, was saying to her : “ My 
poor child, I have come back with good tidings 
for you, too ! The doubt and the fear which tore 
my heart as I listened to your dreadful story are 
gone ! He who made you, must have meant you 
to be happy. For you His purpose was good, His 
heart was tender, His thought was love ! He, the 
everlasting God, shall not be defeated ! I cannot 
tell you, poor, wronged, innocent child, why the 
spoiler found you, any more than I can tell you why 
ravening wolves break in upon the lambs on the 
pleasant hills — any more than I can tell you why 
evil is in the world. That is the question which the 

370 


BUT GOD IS. 


371 


best and wisest of men have never answered. Some 
of the noblest souls have pondered it, until they have 
gone mad with wonder and pity ; but God has eter- 
nity — He will answer it there !” 

The radiant face, the voice thrilled with solemn 
triumph, had a profound effect on the sick girl. But 
Lenox had been talking less to her, than to her own 
soul. 

“ You don’t believe me, perhaps,” she said, as she 
met Jessie’s awe-struck gaze. “Can it be that I — 
a weak and faulty woman at best — would joyfully 
lie down, and die here this minute, if that would 
change the past — if that could make you rise up well 
and happy from this bed ? And can the God to 
whom you belong — you, the child of His thought 
and heart — be less tender and pitiful than I? He 
must be a good God, after all, Jessie ! Those are 
His flowers that I have brought you ; those are His 
birds that are singing outside. He must have given 
me this heart that aches over you ! ” 

Jessie Dawes put her thin hands over her eyes. 
The tears rolled over her cheeks. She was too ill 
to cry passionately. 

Lenox Dare was not given to talking lightly of 
sacred things. She had a horror of cant, of pious 
commonplaces. But this was one of the great mo- 
ments of her life. Its light and joy had risen out 
of a great darkness and pain. She sat down now 
and took Jessie’s hands in hers. She talked as she 
had never done before — as, perhaps, she could never 
do again. She told her about the Christ — the Father’s 
unspeakable Gift to the world ; how He went about 


872 


LENOX DARE. 


the earth, homeless and shelterless ; how Philip, 
drawn to Him by His gracious speech and His won- 
derful deeds — Philip, following Him about with a 
little company of Galilean fishermen, whom the world 
thought of small account, had said to Him one day : 
“ Lord, show us the Father and it sufficeth us ! ” 

This was the question of questions, for the wisest 
as well as the humblest. It had been at the world’s 
heart ever since the creation. Everything in the 
universe, for time and for eternity, hung on the an- 
swer. In one way or another the great men of all 
ages had been asking Philip’s question, even before , 
Christ came. They have been asking it ever since. 
“ Show us the Father.” 

And Christ had answered : “ He that hath seen Me 
hath seen the Father !” 

Philip knew Christ. He had been with Him, day 
by day, among the hills and valleys, through the 
swarming towns and cities of that old Judean world. 
He knew what yearning care and love, what unspeak- 
able pity and tenderness for the sorrows around 
Him, always filled that heart ; knew what joy it gave 
Him to see the sick rise up, glad and healed, at His 
word ; to open the blind eyes to the pleasant world 
— the deaf ears to the sweet sound of human voices ! 
Philip knew how ready He was — this Christ — to 
give Himself to all who needed His help or comfort ; 
how nobody — wayside beggar or loathsome leper — 
was too poor or miserable for Him to care for. Had 
He not taken, amid cold and frowning faces, the 
wild little Galilean children on His knees, and blessed 
them ! Had He not spoken to the sinning and sor- 


BUT GOD IS. 


373 


rowing, to the bruised and broken-hearted, such 
words of forgiveness and consolation, of promise and 
joy, as man had never spoken, as mere man could 
never speak again ! How Philip’s heart must have 
thrilled as he remembered; how he must have felt 
that if God, Creator and Father, was like the Christ 
He had sent to reveal Him, it was the good news 
of all time — it would be the blessedness of eter- 
nity ! 

And the sunbeams shone among the flowers, the 
birds sang outside, while Lenox talked, as she could 
only have talked with that little white face, with 
those mournful eyes before her. 

“ If i could have my own way, you should not die, 
Jessie. I have a home now, a little way off, where 
I would take you — I, who once was homeless and 
friendless — and you should nestle down, as I did, in 
the lap of ease, and comfort, and love. I think I 
could make you happy. I should know so much 
better how to do it because I have been through the 
hard things myself. I should love to watch your 
young life lift up its head again, and put out fresh 
blossoms. I think I could almost make the past 
seem like a strange, terrible dream, out of which 
you had awakened into a new, happy morning.” 

There was a tremulous movement of the little, 
pinched face. A look of life and hope came into 
the mournful eyes. 

“ Dear lady, I think you could do it,” said Jessie 
Dawes, in a tone that one would not have recognized. 

“ And if I could do all this, think what God, who 
loves you so much better, who pities you so much 


874 


LENOX DARE. 


more, can do ! If you go away from me, my poor 
child, it shall not be into the dark ; a Love and Help 
to which all mine must be faint and dim, will wait 
for you, will meet you, will tell you not to be afraid, 
will have its own infinite ways of comforting and 
blessing you, of making you a gladder Jessie than 
you could ever be with me 1” 

Her speech failed her there. She sat still, looking 
at Jessie with tear-dimmed eyes, with thoughts that 
went where words could not reach them. 

At last she heard Jessie’s feeble little voice again, 
with that new quiver of hope in it. 

“ It seems as though it all must be true, now I 
have seen you.” 

Afterward she dropped into a peaceful slumber, 
and in that slumber Lenox went away and left her. 

In the week that followed, the sick girl rallied 
wonderfully. Every day Lenox spent hours with 
her. She brought her flowers and fruits — every- 
thing she could think of to please her fancy, or tempt 
her appetite. 

The sick girl clung to her new friend in a touching 
way. It seemed as though her childhood had come 
back. Lenox fancied that, even in this world, the 
past seemed like a horrible nightmare, that it had slip- 
ped away from heart and soul, as the sorrows of life 
slip away from the presence of death. A softer ex- 
pression came into the little, sharpened face. She 
liked to talk about her home and the doting old 
Grandmother. 

Lenox, in her turn, told stories of Briars wild, and 
of her life there, and the girl would listen intently, 


BUT GOD IS. 


375 


and laugh out merrily at some funny little incident. 
What a sunny nature -it must have been, Lenox 
thought. How the sweet blossom had been torn up 
by the roots, and all its soft-tinted petals fouled by 
cruel hands ! 

Any one who saw her lying there, amid the flush 
of roses and all summer blooms, might have fancied 
Jessie Dawes would get well; but all the time the 
hectic deepened in the hollow cheeks, and the fires 
burned brighter in the great eyes. 

Lenox was determined to make the most of what 
life remained to the girl. The last days, the end of 
the road, should be smooth and pleasant to Jessie 
Dawes. Lenox brought her pretty, bright-colored 
dressing-gowns, and she still showed a girlish pleas- 
ure in them, as she sat in a lounging-chair by the open 
window, where the soft breath of the summer could 
steal in upon her. 

Lenox would have taken the girl to her own home, 
but the doctor feared the effect of the drive over 
the hills on Jessie’s exhausted frame. 

One morning, as Lenox was passing through the 
hall of the hospital, the nurse came to her. 

“ She has had a turn for the worse in the night,” 
the woman said. “ She seems to be sinking fast. 
She has often asked for you.” 

When Lenox bent over the bed of the sick girl, 
she saw there was no more to be done for Jessie 
Dawes in this world. 

The girl looked up, and saw the figure standing 
there. The dim eyes brightened. 

“ I knew you would come,” she said. “ I wanted 
to live until I could see you once more.” 


376 


LENOX DARE. 


“ My poor little Jessie !” faltered Lenox. 

A faint smile stole over the cold lips. 

“ Don’t feel bad for me, dear lady !” they whis- 
pered. “ I am not afraid to go. I believe I shall 
find it all — AS YOU SAID !” 

She turned over. Her breath flickered feebler and 
feebler out of the white lips. In a little while the 
young, peaceful face lay dead in the summer sun- 
shine. 

Lenox Dare threw herself down by the bedside. 

“ O God — Eternal Father,” her soul cried out, 
“look at this — at this! Time and evil have had 
their way — have done their worst with it! But 
Thou hast Heaven and Eternity to Thine ! ” 

And calm and glad in that faith she left Jessie 
Dawes. 


CHAPTER XXVII. 


THE MYSTERY CLEARED UP. 

R OBERT BERESFORD was at his office in the 
city. It was a little after mid-day. He was 
on the point of leaving for the country, when a mes- 
senger brought him a letter from the doctor of a hos- 
pital, a few miles out of the city. A man, injured on 
the railroad, had been brought in two days ago. He 
had fallen across the track in a drunken fit. It was 
not likely he could hold out much longer. When he 
learned his true condition, he had begged earnestly 
that Mr. Beresford might be sent for. He had some- 
thing to say to the gentleman before he died. 

Of course there was nothing to do but to go at 
once. Beresford had barely time to catch the out- 
ward-bound train on the Eastern road. 

An hour later, he was at the hospital. The doctor 
— a rather young man, with a shrewd face, and 
brisk air — met him on the threshold. As they shook 
hands, Beresford inquired the sick man’s name, but 
was as much in the dark as ever when he learned it 
was Oscar Hatch. 

“ He must have been a miserable creature, to judge 
from his looks,” the doctor continued. “ His re- 
cent injuries will have less to do with his death than 

377 


378 


LENOX DARE. 


drink, and hardship, and the effects of a long-neg- 
lected wound, which I suspect he got in some drunken 
brawl. He obstinately refuses to say anything about 
that, and, in any case, it is too late to help him. 
The world, at least, will lose nothing when the man 
is out of it.” 

It was a miserable story to begin with. The doc- 
tor was a kind-hearted man, but too used to this sort 
of thing to be profoundly affected by it. His hearer, 
however, was one of those rare natures, whose quick 
sympathies could not be deadened by any familiarity 
with suffering. He followed the doctor to a large 
room in the back of the great, unfurnished building. 
There were several beds in the apartment, but its 
only occupant was the man who had asked for Rob- 
ert Beresford. 

He lay there, a large, strong-limbed figure, with a 
gaunt, livid face, and gloomy eyes. He was once, 
probably, a good-looking man ; but dissipation, 
neglect, and suffering had set their wasting marks on 
him now. With a single glance at his face you 
would have read their story — would have known 
that Oscar Hatch had not been a good man. 

He raised his head a little, as he heard footsteps 
approaching. The doctor had come again, but this 
time he had brought a stranger with him. In a mo- 
ment Robert Beresford and Oscar Hatch were look- 
ing at each other ; it was a long, questioning, silent 
gaze on both sides. 

At last the sick man said: “ You don’t know me, 
sir ?” 

“ No ; I can’t recall your face, if I ever saw it. 


THE MYSTERY CLEARED HP. 


379 


But I got your message, and came at once. Am I 
the man you wanted to see ?” 

“Yes; you are the one man I didn’t want to die 
without seein’. I knew you would come, if you 
got the word.” 

u You have met me before, it appears.” 

“Yes; that was why I wanted to see you now.” 

At this point the doctor felt the patient’s pulse, 
gave him a cordial, and cautioned him : “ Look out, 
Hatch, and not get excited I” 

Then he left the men together. 

Robert Beresford seated himself by the bedside, and 
! said, in a voice whose clear, manly quality was not 
easily forgotten by those who once heard it : “ Be- 
fore you begin, my friend, I have a word to say. It’s 
not much. It’s only, I’m sorry for you, man, from the 
bottom of my heart. I’m 'sorry for what there may 
| be in the past to trouble you now, and if you will 
believe this, and will tell me any way in which I can 
serve you, I shall be glad to do it.” 

There was a glimmer of grateful feeling in the 
gloomy eyes. 

“ It’s like you to say that, sir,” said Hatch. “ I 
knew you would, if you found me lyin’ here.” 

“ How was it you knew so much about me, Hatch ?” 

“ I know more than you’d think, sir. It’s four 
years last May since I first saw you.” 

“Four years last May!” repeated Robert Beres- 
ford. There was a reason why he should remember 
that May, of all Mays ! 

“ Yes ; I’d come down on the railroad, as far as 
your place, when Joe was off like a streak — he 


880 


LENOX DAKE. 


was a restless little feller — allers takin’ it into his 
head to strike off on his own account.” 

“ Who was Joe ?” 

“ Joe’s my boy, sir. He’s a likely little dog. 
He’s been all the world to me.” The man paused. 
There was a little quiver about his mouth. 

Robert Beresford thought of Philip, and the bond 
of a common feeling drew him closer to the man 
lying there. 

Hatch looked up suddenly. 

“ You’ve seen Joe, sir,” he said. 

“ I have? When have I seen Joe ? ” 

“It was that mornin’ I sat behind the hedge of 
your grounds, and J oe had trotted inside, through the 
gate, and had found a big swing which took his 
eyes. He was a starin’ at it with all his might, 
when you came along.” 

Hatch paused at this point. His hearer tried in 
vain to recall the circumstance. All that scene in 
the grounds had passed from his memory — had been 
swallowed up in the tragedy that happened a little 
later. 

Hatch resumed his talk. 

“When you caught sight of Joe you stopped a 
minute and stared, and then you drew up behind 
him still as a sliadder. I thought you meant to 
give him a beatin’ for intrudin’ on your premises. I 
jest turned fierce as a tiger. I set a world o’ store 
by Joe. The thought that any man would lay hands 
on him, set my blood on fire. I had a big club in 
the grass. I griped that. I knew I could leap the 
hedge in a jiff. I was jest a wild beast that minute. 


THE MYSTERY CLEARED UP. 


381 


One blow on the little feller’s body and I’d ha’ been 
on you ; and you’d ha’ measured your length on the 
ground, and likely never riz again. And there was 
Joe, with his back toward you, and his eyes, big as 
saucers, on that swing, not dreamin’ either of us was 
watchin’ him ! Then, all of a sudden, you bent down, 
cotched him up in your arms, and lifted him over 
your head, and he a sprawlin’, and a kickin’, and 
the breath knocked out of him, it was all done so 
quick. 

“ I couldn’t make out what your game was then, 
but I caught a glimpse of your face, and I see you’d 
never had an idee o’ hurtin’ Joe. But I sat still 
as though I’d been struck by lightnin’ ; and when 
Joe see the laugh in your eyes he gave a screech, 
atwixt wonder and joy — he al’ys took to fun as a 
duck does to water — and when you tossed him up 
in the air, and he a shoutin’ at the top of his lungs, 
as though you two had knowed each other all your 
lives, and you was jest a good playfeller instead of 
a grand gentleman, and I a watchin’ behind the 
hedge, with a kind of a notion the skies might drop 
any minute — ” 

Again Hatch paused. He felt the man beside him, 
listening intently to every word, give a sudden start. 
It had come back in a flash. Robert Beresford saw 
the summer morning — • the little boy standing on the 
edge of the fresh grass — it must have been while 
they two were having their fun together that the 
other thing had happened ! 

“ You remember ?” asked Hatch. 

“ Yes, I remember.” There was a look in his 


382 


LENOX DARE. 


visitor’s eyes that Hatch could not understand, but 
it made him silent. 

In a minute or two Beresford said : “ Go on.” 

In the next half hour Hatch had related all that 
occurred that morning. He repeated the talk with 
the gardener, as though he had just listened to it. 
He described, in his rough, graphic way, his strug- 
gles before he could bring his mind to giving up 
Joe — the sight of the boy in his fresh clothes; and 
their talk as they went up to the house, where the 
interview with the maid had changed Joe’s fortunes. 

Nobody could have listened to the story unmoved ; 
but all the time Robert Beresford was thinking how 
he was sitting in his library, when the messenger 
came, and how, a minute later, he was galloping madly 
through the May morning. 

In the grief that fell and stunned him at that 
time, Joe had, of course, quite vanished from his 
mind. From that day to this the boy had scarcely 
entered his thoughts. 

By the time Hatch was through, he was thoroughly 
exhausted. Beresford put a glass of water to his lips. 

“ There’s something more to tell,” he gasped, as 
soon as he was a little revived. “I — I saw you 
once after that !” 

He looked at his visitor with such an agonized 
look that Beresford laid his hand on the man’s arm, 
and asked, in his kindest way, “ When was that, my 
friend ?” 

“ Ah, sir, perhaps you won’t speak to me like that 
when you come to hear the truth. Perhaps you’ll 
think I’m a villainous dog, as don’t deserve carin’ for, 


THE MYSTERY CLEARED HP. 


383 


and turn your back and go out o’ that door and leave 
me to the devil, that has a claim on me.” 

“ The devil’s claim to a man is something I shall 
never admit. You may be sure of that, Hatch !” 

The invalid fumbled with his big-veined hands at 
the sheet. 

“ I can’t die without makin’ a clean breast of it !” 
he muttered. 44 It may stand in Joe’s way, though.” 

44 No,” said Beresford. 44 It shan’t stand in Joe’s 
way.” 

' With a dreadful effort, the next words were gasped 
out : 44 1 was one o’ the men who laid in wait for 
you that night ! If it hadn’t been for me you’d 
never have got out o’ them woods alive !” 

44 What clo you mean ?” Robert Beresford sprung 
from his chair, as he spoke. 

It was now nearly a year and a half, since his race 
for life, through the November woods. He had never 
obtained the slightest clue to the criminals. His 
broken wrist occasionally troubled him. 

During the next quarter of an hour, the mystery, 
which had so effectually baffled him, was cleared up. 

Hatch, with several of his old tramping comrades, 
was in Massachusetts. The cold weather was com- 
ing on. The men were out of money, and out of 
work. They had been prowling around the country 
until poverty, idleness, and desperation made them 
ready for any rascally business that fell in their way. 

That afternoon, when Beresford was riding out to 
his friend’s, he had come across a farmer, mounted on 
a load of hay. The man was an old acquaintance. 
The two had stopped and had some talk, mostly 


884 


LENOX DARE. 


about tbe weather and the crops ; but in answer to 
an inquiry of the farmer, Beresford had stated where 
he was going that afternoon. 

On the other side of the road, a man, skulking 
behind a stone wall, had listened to this talk. This 
man was one of Hatch’s comrades, and they were 
now out on a tramp together. As Beresford rode 
away, a villainous plot hatched itself in the ruffian’s 
brain. He had neither courage nor skill to carry it 
out alone. He resolved to share the peril and the 
plunder with two cronies, on whom he could rely. 
He sought them at once. He laid open his plot to 
their greedy ears. He had heard the man on horse- 
back say he should not return until after dark. The. 
road home would take him through the woods. A 
cry of distress might serve for a decoy. The farther 
they could draw their victim from the road, before 
the^ laid hands on him, the better for their purposes. 
The prize this time was a gentleman, the ruffian 
averred to his comrades. It was a chance worth 
trying for. There might be a big haul of money, and 
more or less valuables. Everything would be in their 
favor — the night, the lonely woods, the swift sur- 
prise, three stout fellows — armed, desperate, against 
one man, without any means of defence, with no 
human being in reach of his voice ! 

When the matter had been thoroughly canvassed, 
the villians made their murderous compact ; they took 
their oaths to stand by each other ; they drank heav- 
ily, to steady their nerves and to drown any scruples 
they might have about shooting their victim if he 
made the slightest resistance. After dark they went 


THE MYSTERY CLEARED UP. 


385 


into the woods together. Hatch had a knack at imi- 
tating the voices of men and animals. It was his 
cry which had drawn Robert Beresford into the heart 
of the woods that night. 

When the moon came out of the clouds, and her pale 
light touched the calm, resolute face, Hatch had 
i instantly recognized it. In his better moments the 
I man had all along cherished a vague purpose of bring- 
ing Joe back to the gentleman who had so strangely 
befriended him. But time and drink had weakened 
the impulse of that morning. Then the two had 
wandered off into northern New York, where Hatch 
had been leading a vagrant life, returning occasion- 
ally to work and sobriety ; but idleness and bad 
blood always got the upper hand in a little while. 

Hatch’s discovery had instantly sobered him. In 
what followed he had acted on the spur of the mo- 
ment, hardly conscious of what he was doing. He 
only knew that a great horror and remorse were 
forcing him on — that every fibre in his brawny 
frame seemed charged with superhuman strength ; 
he would have fought with Titans to save the life of 
the man he had been hunting to the death. 

He was not, however, to escape himself. One of his 
comrades, maddened by his defection, and the victim’s 
escape, had turned suddenly and fired. Hatch was 
wounded in the breast. Exposure and neglect had 
inflamed the hurt. Hatch had feared to seek a doc- 
tor lest inquiries should lead to detection. When 
he resumed his tramps he found the old strength 
was gone ; though his iron frame had not wholly 
broken down until he met with the accident on the 
railroad. 


886 


LENOX DARE. 


By the time he had finished, Hatch was more 
exhausted than ever. What the confession cost him, 
only the man who heard it, and saw the twitching 
of the lips, the writhing of the big frame, the drops 
on the forehead, could ever imagine. 

After Beresford ' had held the water to his lips 
again, the sick man continued : “ You know the 
wust now, sir. It’s too late to do me any harm ; 
but there’s Joe — you promised me it shouldn’t 
stand in his wa} r .” 

“ I promise you that again, Hatch, now that I know 
all. I shall always remember that it was to Joe I 
owed my life, that night.” 

At those words there was a flash of unutterable 
joy and gratitude in the man’s eyes. 

When Robert Beresford saw that, he asked, quickly, 
44 What is it you want me to do for Joe, Hatch ?” 

44 Jest what I wanted you to do for him the day 
we went up to your house, and I’d brought my mind 
to the partin’. I want Joe to have a chance . He’s 
got good stuff in him. He takes after his mother. 
I’ve kept him from seein’ the vile side o’ things. 
He ain’t much more notion on’t, for all the rough 
times we’ve had together, than your own boy has, 
sir. I don’t ask you to make him a gentleman ; but 
if you’ll only give him a chance, Joe’ll come out an 
honest man.” 

Robert Beresford laid his white hand on the big, 
hard one. 

44 Joe shall have his chance. You may trust him 
to me, Hatch.” 

44 You’ll think of your own boy al’ays, sir, when 
it comes to dealin’ with Joe ?” 


THE MYSTERY CLEARED UP. 


387 


“ I will think of my own boy always when it 
comes to dealing with Joe,” answered Robert Beres- 
ford, solemnly. 

No oath could have sealed more strongly the prom- 
ise of the living man to the dying one. 

“ I’m satisfied sir,” answered Hatch, and a look of 
inexpressible relief stole over the haggard face. 

There was a knock at the door. The gentleman 
must leave at once, if he would not lose the next 
train. One of the partners was to take the steamer 
the following day, for Europe. He could not go with- 
out a last interview with Beresford. 

The doctor thought Hatch might hold out a week 
or more. Beresford promised to return, if possible, 
the following afternoon. Joe would probably be there 
by that time. He had been left behind, in the coun- 
try, when his father set off on, what proved to be, his 
last tramp. 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 


A DIFFERENT MEETING. 

I N the summer forenoon Robert Beresford walked 
up the winding paths which led among flower- 
beds and shrubberies to Miss Dare’s front door. The 
grounds, in all their gay summer bloom, lay about 
him. When he first caught sight of the cottage, 
hidden like a gray nest in a green covert, he said 
to himself : “ What a bit of Eden it is ! I won- 
der what sort of people inhabit it ! ” 

The landscape had a more soothing effect on soul and 
sense because of the scene from which he had just 
come. Half an hour before he had left the hospital, 
where Hatch lay dead. The doctor’s sagacity had 
in this instance proved at fault. His patient had 
sunk suddenly, and when, late in the afternoon, Joe 
arrived, it was all over with his father. 

Donald Brae had been out on some errand, which 
took him past the hospital. He was driving past at 
sunset, when he caught sight of a boy, with a round, 
black head, and some very shabby clothes, sitting 
cross-legged by the gate, and sobbing with all his 
might. 

The kind-hearted Scotchman drew up in his wagon, 
and asked, in his rugged vernacular, “ Hoot, laddie ! 
why are ye greeting ?” 388 


A DIFFERENT MEETING. 


889 


The boy lifted his head, and stared, with black, 
wet eyes, at the stranger. The honest, pitying face 
won his childish confidence, for he answered in a mo- 
ment : “ My father’s dead !” Then he broke out in a 
kind of howl of grief and despair. 

Donald was out of the light wagon, and at the 
child’s side in a moment. 

“ What is your name, laddie ?” he asked, in a voice 
like a woman’s. 

“ Joe Hatch.” 

At that instant the doctor appeared. Donald and 
he were well acquainted by this time, for the gar- 
dener, during Jessie Dawes’s illness, had been daily 
at the hospital, on errands for his mistress. 

A few inquiries brought Joe’s story to the light. 
He had been sent for, at his father’s earnest entreaty. 
He had made the journey of more than two hundred 
miles alone. When he reached the hospital his father 
had been dead several hours. 

Mr. Beresford had telegraphed that he found it 
impossible to come out before the next day. That 
gentleman, it appeared, was the only friend the dead 
man had. They left it for him to decide what should 
be done with the boy. 

Joe, staring with troubled eyes, from one face to 
the other, drank in this talk. At its close the doc- 
tor was called away. 

Donald looked at Joe, and thought of the little boy 
lying far away under the purple harebells, on the 
Scotch hill-side. 

“ Come hame with me, bairnie,” he said. “My 
lass ’ll mither ye owre nicht !” 


390 


LENOX DARE. 


Joe would not have comprehended the words, if 
the pitying look, the kindly voice had not helped 
him. He hesitated a moment. He thought of the 
grand friend who was coming to-morrow, and whose 
image had stood all these years far back in his child- 
ish memory. But the present was very forlorn, and 
Joe was hardly eight. He had been terribly shocked 
at the sight of that white, silent thing, which had 
been his father, lying on the bed, in the hospital 
ward. The thought of spending the night in that 
vast, strange building, with the awful death so near, 
frightened him. He heard Donald promise the doctor, 
when the latter returned, that the boy should be 
brought back in time to meet the gentleman next 
morning. At that, Joe, without a word, put his hand 
in the man’s, and a moment later the two were driv- 
ing off in the light wagon. 

When Robert Beresford reached -the hospital next 
morning, he learned, to his great surprise, of Hatch’s 
death. He had never dreamed the end was so near. 
It was too late for the help and comfort which 
he had hoped to bring into this man’s last days. As 
he stood, gazing on the face, that wore now the sol- 
emn majesty of death, he thought, with unutterable 
pity, of the miserable, wrecked life — of its dread- 
ful frustration of all original powers and intents. 
Then he remembered that night in the woods. Had 
there not been 

“ A little good grain, too,” 

in the poor fellow lying there, Robert Beresford would 
not have been standing over him now. That deed, 
at least, would be put down on his side, in the “ great 
audit.” 


A DIFFERENT MEETING. 


391 


For the rest, Hatch had told the truth. He had 
been “ a bad man.” He had gone to his own place. 
What that was, only God knew. 

Joe had not returned. When Beresford learned 
that the boy was only three miles away, he inquired 
the road, ordered a horse, and set out at once. Half 
an hour’s gallop carried him over the hills. So it all 
came of Joe Hatch that Robert Beresford was walk- 
ing up the grounds to Lenox Dare’s front door, in 
the pleasant, summer morning. 

He had ascended the piazza, and was on the point 
of ringing the bell, when there was a rustle of dra- 
peries on his right, and, turning suddenly, he saw a 
lady who had just stepped through the open window. 
She started, and stood still on seeing him ; and Rob- 
ert Beresford and Lenox Dare looked at each other 
in silence, as, long ago, they had looked in Cherry 
Hollows Glen. 

I suppose the time has come for me now, if ever, 
to describe Lenox Dare's appearance. I should like 
to paint her for you as she stood there that morning. 
But this is something beyond my power. Those who 
knew her best, who felt most deeply the spell of her 
presence, the varied grace and charm of look, and 
speech, and manner, could never agree when they 
came to discuss them. 

A stranger, meeting her for the first time, would be 
struck by her slender form, by her eyes, large and 
heavily-lashed, and of intense brown. He would 
notice, a little later, the delicate features, the clear, 
olive skin, the masses of hair that matched the eyes, 
and framed the whole. But of how many other women 


392 


LENOX DARE. 


might all this and more be written ! How utterly it 
fails to give you any idea of Lenox Dare. 

For, added to all this, was the nameless something 
which recalled the “Fair Women” of legend and 
poetry, which seemed to make possible the dreams 
and ideals of one’s youth. Those who met her, in- 
deed, thought less of her than of something else, of 
faces and forms which men have dreamed on canvas, 
or tenderly carved in marble, or embalmed in immor- 
tal verse. 

For Lenox Dare’s power did not lie chiefly in 
her beauty. She had a wonderful gift of calling out 
latent possibilities, of inspiring the noblest moods, 
the most generous impulses, of those who came 
closest to her. People, of course, responded to this 
power in different degrees ; but the woman of whom 
I write never touched a human soul except on its 
finest side. 

Lenox Dare, as I said, stood quite still, face to 
face with Robert Beresford. Where had she seen 
this man before ? She was trying to answer the 
question. The longer she gazed, the more it baffled 
her. Yet the impression was so strong that it had the 
force of conviction. She waited for him to speak and 
enlighten her. 

This feeling was not singular. Robert Beresford 
had not greatly changed ; he hardly looked ten years 
older than he did at the time when Lenox first saw 
him. What happened at that time had, however, 
slightly confused her memory. Vividly as. she re- 
called each event of the interview, she was always 
more or less bewildered when she came to the stran- 


A DIFFERENT MEETING. 


893 


t ger’s appearance. She only had an impression of 
something grand and noble, beyond that of any man 
1 she had ever seen. She had that impression of the 
one now standing before her. 

Robert Beresford could not, of course, share this 
feeling, that they had met before. How could that 
small, brown girl in the glen have possibly suggested 
the woman standing there, slender and tall, with the 
startled look in her vivid brown eyes ! 

She wore this morning a dress of some light fabric, 
and of a pale gold color. Her uncle had charged her 
never to put on a thread of sable for his sake. She 
i had on a shade-hat, and she carried a pair of gar- 
den-shears — she was on the way to her flower beds. 

Robert Beresford, too, stood spell-bound. It was 
a necessity of his artist-nature that the fleshly love- 
liness of this woman — the perfection of form, of 
color, of curve, should strike his senses first. Later, 
he might come to see farther and deeper than her 
beauty, until that should become a part of something 
finer and better than itself. 

After his eyes had taken their first, long, silent 
delight in her loveliness, the thought flashed across 
him : “ What a boor I must seem, staring at her in 
this fashion.” 

He lifted his hat. “ I was told Miss Dare resided 
here,” he said. 

The voice seemed some old echo in her memory. 
Was it of this land, or did it come from across the 
sea ? Lenox asked herself, while she answered like 
one in a dream : “ Yes ; I am Miss Dare.” 

In a few words the gentleman explained the, errand 
that had brought him to her door. 


394 


LENOX DARE. 


Lenox had not seen Joe. Donald’s wife had told 
her that morning about the boy her husband had 
brought home with him from the hospital, to stay over 
night. The story of the little fatherless waif had 
touched Lenox ; she would have sent for the boy, 
had not some company arrived at the moment. 
When these left, Donald and Joe were on their way 
to the hospital. 

The gardener’s wife was in the hall. She heard 
the gentleman inquire for Joe, and came forward to 
say that the boy and Donald had left an hour before. 

Beresford’s horse stood at the gate. He had left 
word at the hospital where he was going. Would he 
have time to dash over the hills and overtake the pair, 
or would they have started on their return, before 
he could reach the hospital ? 

He had not decided when Miss Dare spoke again. 
The gentleman’s account of his errand had not con- 
firmed her impression of their previous meeting. She 
spoke now with her usual simple directness : “ I 
cannot recall your name — your face even. Tet I 
am almost sure I have seen you before.” 

“ I think you must be mistaken, Miss Dare,” he 
answered, and his eyes smiled on her. “ This is the 
first time I ever had the pleasure of meeting you.” 

A* look of puzzled bewilderment came over her 
face. She seemed half reluctant to admit his own 
assurance, and he thought to himself : “ Does she 
really imagine a man could ever see her and forget 
it — such a splendid creature as she is !” 

At this point, Donald’s wife interposed. “She was 
sure her husband would bring the boy back at once. 


A DIFFERENT MEETING. 


395 


It would be a pity if the gentleman should start, and 
miss them again.” 

“ That is true, Rachel,” answered Lenox, feeling 
now that she was awaking out of a dream, and she 
invited the gentleman to walk in, and wait until the 
two returned. 

Beresford hesitated a moment. He had believed 
that time was precious to him that morning. But 

— in an instant he had thanked Miss Dare — he had 
accepted her invitation — he had introduced himself. 

The name had no association for Lenox. That 
notion of their previous meeting must, after all, 
have been a mistake. Yet she could almost have 
sworn to it. If it had ever happened, it must have 
been in some pre-natal state. At that thought, 
something like the dream of a smile was on her lips, 
as she ushered her guest into the library. 

The most ordinary people, when they met Robert 
Beresford, were struck by his appearance. His noble 
presence, his fine head, his manly beauty, attracted 
others. It was a pleasure to see him, to talk to him, 
even for those who could only know him on the surface. 

The room which he entered struck Beresford’s 
artistic sense at once. The simple, tasteful furnish- 
ings, the harmony of color, the restful atmosphere, 
with its fragrance of freshly culled flowers, all had 
an inexpressible charm for him. It seemed the fit- 
ting environment for such a mistress, he thought. 
And then he looked at Lenox — she had removed 
her hat and gloves, and seated herself near a window 

— and he forgot all about the room. 

On the right was a small piece of sculpture which 


396 


LENOX DARE. 


Mr. Apthorp had picked up in his last visit to Italy. 
It was a peasantboy, bending over a newly-found 
shell. Something in the attitude reminded Beresford 
of Rude’s Neapolitan fisherman in the Louvre — 
that famous work which made the great sculptor’s 
name and fortune in a fortnight. 

When her guest mentioned this likeness to Miss 
Dare, she told him that her uncle had always in- 
sisted on the resemblance between the fisherman 
and the peasant. He had been a great admirer of 
the French sculptor, she said. 

In this way, the conversation opened that morn- 
ing between Robert Beresford and Lenox Dare. Two 
hours of talk followed — talk to both the most simple 
and delightful possible ; full of new zest, surprise, 
suggestion, yet as natural and unconstrained as 
though they two — unconscious of each other’s exist- 
ence a moment before — had been friends for years. 
Indeed, Lenox all the time had a curious feeling that 
her guest was no stranger. They both gave them- 
selves up to the rare delight and stimulation of the 
interview. They talked of whatever came uppermost 

— of life, of art, of the world at home, across the sea 

— and in the talk, and in the pauses that came 
between, in those subtle sympathies which reveal 
themselves alike by speech and by silence, the man 
and the woman began to discern each other’s real 
quality. 

At the end of two hours — it did not seem a quar- 
ter of that time to Miss Dare and her guest — there 
was a stir at the door. Joe had come ! He stood 
there with his round, black head, his tanned face, 


A DIFFERENT MEETING. 


397 


his little, chubby figure. Rachel had tidied him that 
morning, and mended some rents in the shabby 
clothes, so that his appearance was altogether an 
improvement on the boy Donald had found sobbing 
at the hospital gate. 

Joe knew Robert Beresford at the first glance. It 
was more than four years since the two had met, 
but Joe had never forgotten that wonderful hour, 
that grand friend, that glorious playmate. He had 
always cherished a belief that if they could only 
meet again all his troubles would end at once. There 
would be nothing more for him but happy times, 
i endless fun, fine clothes, and dinners, the very thought 
of which made his mouth water. To poor Joe, tossed 
about the world, illtreated by his father, when the 
man was drunk, and half starved a good deal of the 
time, Robert Beresford was the only God he knew 
anything about, and to be with him was heaven. 

Trembling in every limb of his round little body, 
for joy, Joe was yet shy. He stood still in the door- 
way, twirling his bit of cap in his red, stubby fin- 
gers. His face was radiant. 

But when the gentleman, seeing him, rose at once, 
put out his hands, and said, “ Well, Joe, have you 
come at last?” in the old, kindly tone he remembered 
so well, the boy forgot everything else, and darted 
across the room with a little yell of delight, not even 
seeing the lady, with her beautiful, questioning eyes, 
who sat by the window. 

u We have had a long chase for each other, Joe,” 
continued Beresford, entering into the feelings of 
the boy with those swift sympathies which was largely 


398 


LENOX DARE. 


the secret of his power over others. “You look as 
though you were glad to see me.” 

“ Yes, sir’ee, I am,” replied Joe. “I’ve come to 
stay with you now. My father al’ays used to say I 
should.” 

The boy’s lip suddenly quivered. At the hospital 
he had taken another long look at the silent, ghastly 
figure on the bed, that looked so like, and yet not 
like, his father. At that sight, grief and fear had 
swept over his childish soul again, and he had sob- 
bed as though his heart would break. 

“ I know you are come to stay with me, Joe,” an- ; 
swered Beresford, as he sat down and drew the little ! 
fellow between his knees, while the strong man’s 
heart grew very tender over this worse than orphaned 
boy — this poor little waif, who had been so strangely 
thrown on his help and pity ; and whose best fortune 
it was that his father lay dead that summer morning, 
in the hospital, three miles away. 

The gentleman laid his hand softly on the black 
little head, as he was in the habit of doing on an- 
other soft-ringed, brown one. 

“I shall try to make you a happy boy, Joe — a 
good one,” he said. 

Joe twirled his cap again ; his black eyes danced. 

It was impossible for him to imagine he could be 
anything but happy and good, now he was with his 
friend. He knew he had been something else very 
often in the miserable times that were gone. 

In a moment he broke out, eagerly, “ Is the swing 
there ?” 

“ The swing is there, Joe.” 


A DIFFERENT MEETING. 


399 


The hoy gave a little howl of joy. He had not 
been trained in drawing-room manners. Yet there 
was something pathetic in the way his childhood 
asserted its eternal right to happiness. Here Joe 
Hatch stood — orphaned, homeless, outcast, without 
a friend in the world save the man with whom he 
had only once spent a memorable half hour. Yet, 
despite all the poverty and shame, and loneliness of 
his lot, his little childish heart trembled for joy ; he 
was as happy at that moment as it was possible for 
boy to be, because he had learned “ the swing was 
there !” 

All this time Lenox had sat perfectly silent, watch- 
ing the scene. Her guest felt now that some expla- 
nation was due her. He said to Joe : “ Will you tell 
this lady — Miss Dare — who has been so kind as to 
allow us to meet here, how you and I first came to 
know each other. 

Then Joe became conscious of the lady’s presence. 
He turned now, and stared at her with the solemn, 
curious eyes of childhood. She smiled on him. 

“Won’t you tell me, Joe ?” she asked. 

He drew a deep breath. The red, stubby fingers 
plucked nervously at the cap. In a moment the 
words came in broken sentences : “ It was ever so 
long ago ; I got inside the gate. There was a swing 
there. % He come up softly behind, and see me a stand- 
in’ and watchin’ it. First I knew, he had cotched me 
up in his arms, and was a-tossin’ me up and down in 
the air. Oh, it was jolly ! Then we had a swing. 
I hit the tree each time. Then a man come along, 
and they talked, and — and — the man took me into 


400 


LENOX DABE. 


the house, and I had on some bran-new clothes, and 
such a breakfast ! It was all high jinks ! Then it grew 
still, and nobody came, and when I got tired of eatin’ 
I went to the door and looked round, and couldn’t 
see nobody. Then I found my father a sittin’ be- 
hind the hedge, and he told me he’d heard and seen 
all that went on the other side. Then he said as how 
he’d made up his mind to give me to the gentleman, 
and we went up to the house ag’in ; but the woman 
wouldn’t let us in, and said her master was gone.” 

When Joe finished there was a little silence. 
Donald, standing all this time in the hall, came for- 
ward now and apologized for being absent so long. 
They had waited at the hospital for Mr. Beresford, 
before setting out home again. 

Then Lenox and her guest learned, to their amaze- 
ment, that their interview had lasted more than two 
hours. 

As Beresford rode away, with Joe in front of him, 
he thought of what Goethe had said of Rachael 
Varnhagen : “ She is one of those souls whom I 
love to call beautiful !” 


CHAPTER XXIX. 


FRIENDSHIP. 


EXOX DARE stood on the piazza and watched 



I_^ the pair ride away. She had not asked her 
guest to call again. She had not even thought of it. 
Yet she had a feeling that this was not their last 
meeting. She walked across the piazza in the hot 
sunshine, for it was now a little past mid-day, and 
not a leaf of all the curtaining vines about her stirred 
in the sultry stillness. It seemed as though the 
world was holding its breath. Even her thoughts 
moved in a vague sort of reverie. Every few min- 
utes the noble head, the grand presence, would rise 
before her, so strange yet so familiar. Of course that 
fancy of hers, about their former meeting, was all 
a mistake, she kept saying, until at last she. made 
herself believe it. When Rachel came to tell her 
lunch was ready, she seemed to wake out of a dream. 

For a fortnight Robert Beresford, in his intervals 
of leisure, usually found himself thinking of Lenox 
Dare. He was haunted by a great curiosity regarding 
her. She had left some fine aroma in his memory. 
That could not be the effect simply of her beauty, 
powerfully as that had impressed his artist nature. 
He said to himself, often, “ I must see that woman 


again !” 


401 


402 


LENOX DAEE. 


This was a very easy thing to do. They had 
already spoken of mutual acquaintances. Beresford 
could have sought Miss Dare equipped with the pro- 
per letters of introduction. But this seemed to him 
now too conventional a way of approaching her. 
He could not even bring himself to make a single 
inquiry regarding her. 

Lenox was right ; Robert Beresford did come again. 
One morning she entered the library, and most unex- 
pectedly found him awaiting her there. She had 
come in from out-doors, and had not yet heard of his 
arrival. He was standing by the mantel, over which 
hung a little marine picture — a bit of sandy beach, 
and huge green waves crested with foam, while in 
the west flamed a red bar of sunset-cloud. He was 
looking at this when Lenox came in, the pale roses 
in her cheeks a little brightened by her walk. 

“I beg your pardon, Miss Dare,” he said, for his 
manner and speech, with their perfect courtesy, were 
always simple and direct, “ for calling again, without 
your permission. I have not even brought the letters 
of introduction which I perhaps ought to have done.” 

“ I am ver}^ glad you felt there was no need of 
letters, Mr. Beresford,” answered the voice that had 
haunted his memory like music, and the lady gave 
him her hand, with a welcome in her eyes. 

If all this sounds very odd and informal, I can 
only say that you must remember the kind of man 
and woman they were, and that each had already 
recognized in the other a nature touched to fine 
issues. 

After this informal greeting, the talk followed 


FRIENDSHIP. 


403 


naturally. It opened ever into wider vistas. And 
always the thought and speech of the one stimulated 
and allured that of the other. It kindled their no- 
blest feelings, enthusiasms, sympathies. In such rare, 
delightful intercourse, hours go almost like minutes. 
Robert Beresford found that he had barely time to 
reach the next train, and begged Miss Dare’s pardon 
for staying so long. 

It need not be said that he came again. I can- 
not trace here, step by step, the acquaintance as it 
grew between this man and woman. The more they 
saw of each other, the more their sympathies — intel- 
lectual, artistic, moral — came to light. What Mrs. 
Charles Kingsley, in her life of her husband, has 
beautifully said, was true also of this other pair : 
“ And gradually the new friendship, which yet seemed 
old — from the first more of a recognition than an 
acquaintance — deepened into intimacy.” 

Robert Beresford came often to visit Miss Dare. 
What restful, inspiring, altogether delightful hours 
he passed under that gray roof! He had not dreamed 
the world held anything for him so precious and 
stimulating as he - found this new companionship. 
While he talked with Miss Dare the whole horizon 
of his life seemed to widen and glow with the old 
enthusiasms and aspirations of his early youth. All 
the hopes and purposes of his noblest hours seemed 
possible to him in her presence. 

What was true of their first conversation was true 
of all that followed. Books, and art, and human life 
— the world about them — the lands where they had 
traveled — the people whom they had met, were in 


404 


LENOX DARE. 


turn discussed. Of course the mood of the time 
formed the key-note of the talk ; but through all 
its phases, grave and gay, earnest and playful, the 
strong and noble soul of the man, the tender and 
gracious one of the woman, more and more recog- 
nized and rejoiced, as all true souls must, in each 
other. Indeed, within a month after they had first 
met, they might have said, what Goethe did long ago : 
“ For the first time I may well say I carried on a 
conversation. For the first time was the inmost sense 
of my words returned to me, more rich, more full, 
more comprehensive, from another’s mouth. What I 
had been groping for was made clear to me. What 
I had been thinking, I was taught to see.” 

Lenox Dare had, as she once told Ben Mavis, 
friendships with men. But all others — even that 
with uncle Tom — seemed to lack something fine 
and perfect, which this man — so late a stranger — 
brought her. It had come into her grief and loneli- 
ness an unutterable solace and pleasure, yet, like 
all the other best things, as naturally and easily as 
dawn rises out of the dark. 

Robert Beresford came out often in the late after- 
noons, and took supper with Miss Dare. Sometimes 
they walked among the grounds, or strayed outside 
into the green old lanes, and shady, sweet-breathed 
coppices around Lenox’s home, while thoughts and 
words, “ many hued, many shaped,” arose between 
them. Two or three times they drove over to the 
beach, in the summer twilight, and listened for awhile 
to the voices of the sea. This “love of all out-doors,” 
as Lenox used half-play fully to call her delight in 


FRIENDSHIP. 


405 


natural scenery, was one of the many feelings where 
the two could meet on common ground. 

A friendship like this, is, of course, no ordinary ex- 
perience. From its very nature, it could only exist 
where there was a wide range of vital sympathies. 
Such a companionship would always be a cause for 
unutterable thankfulness to the two who enjoyed 
it. Each would be likely to cherish a feeling of im- 
mense gratitude toward the other. Beresford, for his 
part, had not a doubt that he received vastly more 
than he gave. Lenox would have said the same 
thing of herself. 

In their thought — after a little while in their 
speech — each called the other, “ My friend !” of- 
tener than they did by any other name. This inter- 
course was the more perfect because no dream of love 
ever entered into it. Each would have resented the 
thought as a wrong to the other. Despite all these 
years of loss and loneliness, Robert Beresford had be- 
lieved that no other woman could take the place of 
the dead wife who had been so suddenly wrenched 
out of his life that May morning. 

If Lenox Dare had had lovers she was not the sort 
of woman to talk about them. She believed that her 
fondness for her uncle, her sisterly attachment to 
young Mavis, would be the strongest emotions of her 
life. She was too thoroughly a woman, however, not 
to have a consciousness of possibilities of passionate 
devotion in herself. But there was a side of her 
nature, which, through all her girlhood, had been as 
slumber-bound as the princess in the beautiful, old 
legend. He who was destined to awake the sleeper, 


406 


LENOX DARE. 


came — so runs the story — soft and unheralded, 
through silent gardens, and stately palace. She saw 
no form, she heard no footfall, until he stood by her 
side, and called her, and she awoke and knew him. 

Before the summer was over Robert Beresford j 
brought Jack Leith and his wife to see Lenox Dare. ! 
Returning from their visit, they were driving home 
from the railroad station, when Jack said to his wife : 

“ What a splendid creature she is !” 

“ Yes,” said Mrs. Leith, a sweet-faced little blonde, 
with sparkling eyes and pale gold hair, “ Miss Dare is 
lovely. O Jack I when I saw those two together, I 
could not help imagining a romance. Such a glorious 
pair as that man and woman would make !” 

Jack gave his horse a sharp cut with the whip. 

“ How absurd you are, Gertrude ! All that notion 
is worthy a romantic school-girl. The two are simply 
friends. With such a man and woman that means a 
great deal.” 

“ But is it impossible that friendship may ripen 
into something more, even with people like them ? 
Of course they don’t dream of such a thing now.” 

“ And never will. Gertrude you always were a 
sentimental little humbug !” 

“ But, at all events, I have a woman’s instincts,” 
answered Gertrude, with a pout of lips that seemed 
to have stolen the bright red of a brier-rose. Then 
she added: “Jack you are a goose! There never 
was a man who was anything else !” 

Jack broke into a merry laugh as they drove up 
to the gate, “ How lucky it was, my dear,” he said, 
“ that you added that last clause. You may call me 


FRIENDSHIP. 


407 


bad names as often as you like, if you will only in- 
clude the rest of my sex in your category ! ” 

Meanwhile Joe was getting on. Beresford had 
taken the boy. for the present to his own home. He 
w r as in Martha’s kindly hands once more. Joe had 
discovered that life, even in the paradise he had been 
so long dreaming about, was not altogether what his 
fancy had painted — not merely one long frolic and 
feast — not an eternal “jolly time” with the grandest 
playfellow in the whole world. 

At eight years, even, the human animal finds it 
hard to learn new habits. In the midst of his good 
fortune Joe sometimes had a hankering for the old, 
careless tramp life, with all the hardness and mis- 
ery thrown in. He sometimes looked down ruefully 
at his polished boots, as he remembered what fun it 
was to throw up his bare, dirty little heels in the wet 
grass, or splash through the big pools after a rain. 

School, at first, was a dreadful stumbling-block ; 
and for weeks he was sorely tempted to run off, and 
have one day, at least, in the old vagabond fashion. 
But though he frequently tried the patience of those 
who had immediate charge of him, they discovered 
that one argument had weight with him when all 
others 'failed, and that was the ‘approval of Mr. 
Beresford — the light in which he would regard Joe’s 
behavior. 

Through all his trials and his bad tempers, Joe’s 
confused little brain, and childish, heart still held 
loyally to his benefactor. To please him gave the 
boy a greater satisfaction than anything else in the 
world. He had his rewards, too. The gentleman 


408 


LENOX DARE. 


always took a walk in the grounds after breakfast. 
It was understood that Joe would accompany him. 
The boy’s face would be radiant as he trotted along, 
chatting eagerly, his little brown hand clasped tightly 
in his friend’s. But the crowning joy arrived when 
they came to the swing. Joe would whisk into the 
seat, and, the next moment, shouting with glee, 
would mount among the branches, while Beresford 
stood by, doing his part, and thoroughly enjoying 
the fun. 

Indeed Donald confided to his wife that anybody, 
seeing them together, would find it hard to tell which 
was the greater boy — Joe or the master ! 

In the first week of autumn Lenox received a let- 
ter from Ben Mavis. While he wrote, a little boy 
lay sleeping his first sleep, by his mother’s side, in 
the cottage at Briarswild. 

When Lenox read that she made up her mind 
what she would do. 


CHAPTER XXX. 


THE TRUTH AT LAST. 


HE morning after Lenox received her letter 



Robert Beresford came out. He had not seen 


her for several days. When she came in, in some 
light robe, whose folds hung cool against the sultry 
morning, she said to him : “ I am glad to see you, 
Mr. Beresford. I feared lest you should come and 
find me gone.” 

“ Find you gone !” he repeated, and something in 
his tone told her a part of all the words meant to 
him. 

“Yes,” she answered, “but only for a little while. 
I expect to leave for Briarswild to-morrow.” 

“ A little while, I think you said, Miss Dare ? 
What do you call a little while ?” 

“ A month, perhaps. Ben and Dorrice will hardly 
let me return in less time — don’t look at me in that 
way, Mr. Beresford !” she exclaimed, for there was 
something in his eyes which hurt her. She was too 
thoroughly this man’s friend to think of herself, to 
feel flattered at the look which told her, better than 
any words could, how much he would miss her. 

“I beg your pardon if I looked at the moment 
what I felt. I see now what these months have 


409 


410 


LENOX DARE. 


been to me, as I feel what the next one will be without 
you. What will it seem not to come here ; not to 
hear your voice ; not to see your face, my friend ?” 

Lenox scarcely heard the last words. She found 
herself wishing that the visit might be put off. Then 
she felt a swift pang of remorse, of resentment, for 
her friends. It seemed a wrong to them, an ingrat- 
itude, because, for this man’s sake, she was not more 
than half glad to go to Briarswild ! 

She spoke now rather to this feeling than in reply 
to him. 

“But I must go at once. I should never be able 
to forgive myself if I delayed an hour to see the 
son of Ben Mavis.” 

“ I am not so selfish a brute as to desire you should 
do that, Miss Dare.” Then he opened a magazine. 
“ I have brought you a new poem to read,” he said. 
He had been much in the habit of bringing anything 
which pleased him in his reading to Miss Dare. Any 
noble or beautiful thought, any graceful fancy, any 
perfect bit of imagery — he would bring all these to 
enjoy afresh with a mind so thoroughly appreciative 
and responsive as hers. 

The poem which he read now was one of Whit- 
tier’s rustic ballads, a lovely, homely old legend, set 
in rhyme. One could almost hear through the words 
the rustle of the ripening corn, the low murmur of 
streams over mossy stones — almost catch the breath 
of the sweet clover and the wild briar roses, almost 
see the white flash of the sea-bird’s wing, and the 
broad river-meadows asleep in the sunshine. The 
voice of the reader lent a fresh charm to the ballad. 


THE TRUTH AT LAST. 


411 


44 How lovely it is !” Lenox said, when he paused. 
44 I think some echoes of that poem will linger for 
me in the air all day, Mr. Beresford.” 

“I am glad to hear you say that,” he answered; 
and then he sat silent for a while, looking at her. At 
last he spoke again : 44 I shall write to you sometimes, 
Miss Dare.” 

‘ 44 1 hope you will.” 

44 But, despite that resource, I foresee I shall have 
some miserable, lonely moods to fight through. I 
must be on my guard now.” 

44 Against what ?” 

44 Against my fiend of a temper !” 

44 One might really suppose, from your talk, Mr. 
Beresford, that you were often angry.” 

44 That would be a mistake, too. I never feel quite 
sure, however, that I have more than throttled my 
ancient enemy — that he may not be biding his time 
to spring on me. What are you thinking about, 
Miss Dare ?” 

44 It has just recurred to me that when I met you 
the first time, on the piazza, I said to myself, 4 This 
man’s anger must be a terrible thing !’ Indeed, it 
seemed for the moment as though I must have sometime 
seen you in a great outbreak of passion. It is the 
more curious, too, because everything of that sort is 
so wholly unlike you.” 

44 Your instinct was simply marvelous!” he said, 
looking at her with amazement. 

44 1 can’t agree with you, when I remember how 
signally it failed me at that time. There was an 
instant or two when I could have sworn we had met 
before.” 


412 


LENOX DAKE. 


“Yes, you certainly were at fault there. As though 
I could ever have seen you, Miss Dare, and forgot- 
ten it !” 

He spoke quite involuntarily; but the next mo- 
ment it struck him as rather curious that this speech 
came nearer a compliment to Miss Dare’s beauty 
than anything he had ever said to her. 

In a moment she spoke again, following the train 
of her association: “I have often seen people in 
tempers, and I have been annoyed, pained, shocked, 
as the case might be. But only once in my life have 
I been frightened by the sight of an angry person.” 

“Was the anger of so terrible a nature, then ?” 

“ It was vivid enough, certainly ; but that which 
gave it its force was its perfect justice. I had done — 
what seemed an unpardonable wrong.” 

“You — you wrong anybody, Miss Dare?” 

“ It was wholly accidental on my part, but it was 
none the less an irreparable mischief. I cannot think 
of it now without its hurting me !” There was a 
little tremulousness on her face — in her voice. 

“ But if you were not to blame, nobody certainly 
had any right to be angry with you.” 

“But — the person of whom I speak could not pos- 
sibly know how innocent I was of any intentional 
harm. The cruel wrong was before his eyes — the 
circumstances all against me. When he did learn 
the truth, he made the amplest, the most beautiful 
apologies a man could.” 

She spoke now with a thrill in her voice. Any- 
thing in her experience had an interest for him. 

“ I wish you would relate the story, Miss Dare,” 
he said ; “ unless you have reason for not doing so.” 


THE TRUTH AT LAST. 


413 


Lenox hesitated. In the course of their acquaint- 
ance she had sometimes spoken of her life at Cherry 
Hollows. Yet her friend had, in reality, very little 
notion of it. She had, during her uncle’s life, seldom 
alluded to her childhood, because the subject was 
painful to him. This reticence had become a habit. 
Her uncle was the only person to whom she had ever 
related the scene in Cherry Hollows Glen. Her 
jealous tenderness for his memory kept her silent 
over all that might awaken a suspicion of his hay- 
ing neglected her. But almost against her will she 
found herself speaking in a moment. For the sec- 
ond time in her life she was relating the events of 
that far-away morning. 

“ How well I remember that morning, Mr. Beres- 
ford !” she said. “ It was the most perfect of sum- 
mer days. • Mrs. Crane — you remember she was my 
grand-uncle’s widow, with whom I was left after 
his death — was in wonderfully good humor. She 
had set her heart on having company at tea, and 
I was sent off early into the pastures to gather ber- 
ries. Before ten o’clock my basket was filled, and 
I had started for home on the winding old turn- 
pike, when I reached a point which afforded a fine 
view of the Glen. I leaned over the bars, on one 
side of the road, and gazed down into the green 
gulf. I can see, at this moment, that little girl, with 
her brown dress and basket of berries, as she went 
along the road — as she leaned over the bars that 
morning !” 

She paused a moment. Robert Beresford looked 
at the speaker, as she sat before him in her cool 


414 


LENOX DARE. 


dress. Wherever she moved, he thought, some grace 
and fragrance of perfect womanhood must cling 
to her. While she talked he tried to imagine the 
scene. The picture he drew was sufficiently vivid 
to himself, but it was not in the least like the Lenox 
Dare who came with her basket out of the berry- 
pastures that morning. 

In a moment she went on : “ Something at the 
foot of the Glen attracted my attention. A young 
man stood there, with his back toward me, evidently 
gazing at the scene. I can see him, after all these 
years — the tall, lithe figure — the small cap on the 
proud young head. 

“ J ust on the right of the stranger stood some- 
thing which I was not long in discovering must be 
an easel. I knew then he was an artist. Instantly 
a curiosity to see that picture took possession of 
me ; I had never, it seemed to me, in my whole 
life, so longed to get at anything. While I was 
thinking about it, the artist suddenly drew some- 
thing from his pocket, and disappeared on a foot- 
path among the trees. I knew then he had gone 
to a spring not far away. My chance had come 
now. What a wild, headlong impulse it was ! I 
half shudder now to remember how I flung myself 
over the bars, and plunged down that steep gorge of 
over a hundred feet.” 

“ It was a mad thing to do !” exclaimed Miss Dare’s 
guest. 

“ It certainly was. The wonder is that I did not 
break my neck. But the catastrophe befell me when 
the worst of the peril seemed over. An old trunk, 


THE TRUTH AT LAST. 


415 


rotten and slimy, lay in my way. My feet slipped ; 
1 tried to save my berries, and lost my balance. I 
rolled down into the Glen. I fell with all my force 
against the easel. I rose at last, a good deal scratched 
and torn, and dreadfully bewildered with my fall. 
The berries had rolled after me. I picked up my 
basket ; and then I caught sight of a canvas, on a 
bush in the hollow. Great, spike-like thorns had 
pierced it. I saw a dreadful rent in the centre. I 
dashed down and tore away the canvas. I turned 
it up to the light. It was as I fearedo The beau- 
tiful picture was ruined ! 

“In a moment — why are you looking at me in 
that way?” she asked suddenly, meeting his eyes. 
For they were staring at her with something inde- 
scribable in their luminous depths. Was it amaze- 
ment, doubt, bewilderment, which almost stunned 
him for the moment ? All the time he had listened 
intently to her story ; but in a flash it came over 
him that she was relating what had happened long 
ago in Cherry Hollows Glen. It broke upon him 
so suddenly, and with such force of conviction, that 
he grew quite pale. 

“Are you ill, Mr. Beresford ?” Lenox asked, anx- 
iously, seeing that he did not speak. 

“ Not in the least, thank you,” he said, recover- 
ing himself by a strong effort. “But I am very 
deeply interested in your story. I want to know 
what happened next, Miss Dare ?” 

“ What happened next, was the artist’s return.” 
Lenox became too absorbed in her recital to notice 
her friend. Indeed, he sat still as a statue ; he 


416 


LENOX DAKE. 


scarcely breathed as he listened, and drank in every 
word. Was he dreaming ? Would he wake up in 
a moment ? The wonder was that he could have 
taken the story from her lips, and gone on with it ! 
How perfectly every event lived in her memory ! How 1 
vividly she painted their first meeting ; his terrible 
outbreak of wrath; her dread of his vengeance; the ! 
terror and despair which had paralyzed soul and 
body ! 

She paused ; but it was only to resume her story 
at the point where the artist, after tearing up his 
picture, had gone away, leaving her more dead than 
alive. She told how a mighty impulse to clear her- 
self in his eyes had suddenly brought her to her 
feet, how she had followed him, and forced him to listen 
to her, until the old terror, held at bay for a moment, 
overcame her again, and she fled from him with a 
cry. She related how he had found her, crouching 
among the black shadows at the foot of the old pine 
tree ; and when it came to what passed there, she had 
not, in all these years, forgotten one word, one tone, 
one gesture ! 

But Lenox did not stop here 0 The time, the scene, 
had laid hold of 'heart and brain. She went over 
with the story of that whole day, with the doubts 
and fears, the hopes and longings, that had possessed 
her, until at last the night came, and she stood in 
the lonely road, with the young moon looking down 
on her between the gray, muffling clouds, and she 
knew that she had parted from her childhood for- 
ever. 

There was another pause. Then she spoke again. 


THE TRUTH AT LAST. 


417 


“ A little later there came a great crisis in my life, 
when, all alone, I had to take the step which de- 
cided my future. I should never have had strength 
or courage to face that time, to do that thing I 
did, had it not been for the scene in Cherry Hollows’ 
Glen. What that man said to me awoke me from 
my childhood — aroused some latent energies within 
me. He must have been a rare and noble nature 1 
He will never know in this world what a debt I owe 
him. But I always have a feeling that I shall meet 
him and tell him — that he will listen, and be glad 
to know — in some other life!” 

The thrilling voice, a little tremulous now, suddenly 
stopped. 

Lenox, absorbed in her story, had hardly looked 
at her guest. 

Then Robert Beresford rose, and stood before her. 
It seemed as though something forced him. 

“ Yes,” he said, leaning over her. “ He will be 
glad to know, Miss Dare ; but you will not have to 
wait until you are in another life, to tell him. It 
was I you met that morning in Cherry Hollows’ Glen!” 

“ You, Mr. Beresford — you /” she exclaimed, and 
then she sat quite still, staring at him. 

The faint rose-bloom faded from her cheeks, the 
red from her lips. But the truth came to her an 
instant later. She saw that the face before her and the 
man in the Glen were the same. How blind she had 
been not to know it before ! Her first instinct was 
true after all. In a moment it seemed quite nat- 
ural — the only thing, indeed, that could have been. 

“Yes,” she said, in glad, quiet tones, “you are 
the same man. I see it all now ! ” 


418 


LENOX DARE. 


But the marvel would not pass with him. He 
drew a chair to her side. He sat down, and gazed at 
her awhile in silence. How had this white splendor 
of a Psyche bloomed out of that brown chrysalid? 
At last he spoke. 

“ That little girl,” he said, “was small, and tanned, 
and scrawny. You are not a woman, Miss Dare, 
whom it is easy to compliment, but you cannot fail 
to be aware of — of your own loveliness. Do you tell 
me that you and that little girl are the same ?” 

“We are the same !” she. answered. Her voice 
was steady, but her lip quivered. 

He took the hand which lay on her lap in his own. 

“ That little girl,” he said, “ laid her hand in mine. 
Hers was brown with the sun, it was scratched with 
briars, it was stained with berries. This makes me 
think of some piece of antique sculpture.” 

“ But they are the same !” She tried to answer 
playfully, but her voice shook. The contrast be- 
tween that day and this — the thought of all the 
gladness of her life, of all that God had given her, 
suddenly overwhelmed her ; and this woman, with 
all her fine repose of brain, and nerve, and soul, 
broke down into passionate sobbing. 

Robert Beresford rose again. What had come 
over him that made him thrill and tremble at his 
heart — in every fibre of his strong frame ? What 
flooded his whole being with joy so intense as to be 
almost pain ? In a moment he knew that he loved 
the woman who was sobbing before him — loved her 
with all that was best and noblest in him, with all 
the strength and passion of his manhood. 


THE TRUTH AT LAST. 


419 


He went out on the piazza. He walked back and 
forth, unheeding ; yet, at the centre of his tumult- 
uous thoughts and feelings, he was conscious, all the 
time, of a solemn calm — of a supreme gladness. 

One thing, however, was certain. Whatever the 
man felt, he did not dream, as ordinary lovers would, of 
any return on her part. At that moment, it seemed 
to Robert Beresford honor and joy enough that he 
could love such a woman. 

Did he walk the piazza for hours ? It seemed so 
to him. At last he turned and went in. 

He found Miss Dare sitting where he had left her. 
How lovely she looked with the flush of her weep- 
ing still in her cheeks ! She naturally supposed he 
had gone out and left her alone when her foolish 
tears surprised her. 

The two looked at each other a moment in silence. 
Then his strong will seemed suddenly to fail him 
— to yield to a spell mightier than himself. A mo- 
ment before he had meant to carry his new secret to 
the grave. He spoke now ; the tall form, the noble 
head leaned over her, as they had leaned long ago. 

“ I have made a mistake,” he said quietly. 44 1 
have believed all this time that my feeling for you. 
Miss Dare, was that of the sincerest friendship.” 

At another time she might, perhaps, have dimly 
forestalled his meaning, but the last hour had be- 
wildered her, had shaken her out of her habitual 
calm. 

44 What was it ?” she said, not realizing what she 
asked. 

44 It was — love !” 


420 


LENOX DARE. 


He saw how the word struck her like a blow — 
how pale she grew — how she shivered from head 
to foot. 

“ I did not know,” she said, in a faltering tone, 
putting her hand to her forehead. 

He could have cursed himself when he saw how 
cruelly he had shaken her. 

“ I am sure you did not know,” he answered. 

“ I should never have told you, if I could have 
helped it. I certainly had not the madness to dream j 
of asking anything on my part. I shall never again 
speak the word which something just now forced 
from my heart and lips. Let all be between us as 
though that had never been spoken ! Let it never 
invade our friendship. This has become the best 
thing — the blessing and inspiration of my life. I am 
going away now for your sake — for my own ! You 
will hear from me soon after you reach Briarswild. 
Good-bye, my friend !” 

She said good-by. She gave him her hand. She 
watched him with still, dazed eyes as he left the j 
room. She heard him go through the hall. 

But for her, too, had come one of those moments 
which flash their lightnings to the interior of one’s i 
being. Such moments are charged with a divine 
purpose. They bring the supreme conviction, the 
perfect knowledge. The light came first to Lenox 
Dare; then the ineffable joy — a joy that drew her 
with irresistible power toward the man who had just 
left her. 

She rose from her chair. She went steadily and 
swiftly toward the door. 


THE TRUTH AT LAST. 


421 


u Come back, Mr. Beresford ! ” she said, and the 
clear, soft voice had a ring of sovereign command 
which he had never heard before. 

He had just reached the front door. He turned 
and came back. He found her standing on the 
threshold. There was not a trace of color in her 
cheeks; but, after an instant or two of silence, her 
great, dilated eyes poured into his own all their 
splendors of light and joy, and tenderness. Then 
she held out her hands. When Lenox Dare gave 
her heart, it would be like herself, generously, abso- 
lutely, with no reserves. 

44 1 love you, Robert Beresford !” she said. 44 Thank 
God I know it now! Better than all the world — 
better than my own life, I love you !” 


CHAPTER XXXI. 


AT BBIARSWILD AGAIN. 

L ENOX DARE had been a month at Briarswild 
before Robert Beresford joined her. The 
Mavises were the only people to whom she confided 
her engagement. Even they did not learn it until 
she had been with them more than a fortnight. 

It was, of course, an immense surprise. To Ben 
it was not, certainly, an unmixed joy. But he ex- 
pressed his real feeling, when he said, looking at 
Lenox with his deep, quiet gaze : “ I cannot believe 
there is a man in the world worthy to be your hus- 
band. If there is, I shall be glad that you have found 
him.” 

“ O Ben, how your praise shames me !” answered 
Lenox, grateful tears filling her eyes. “I am no 
more worthy of it than I am to be Robert Beres- 
ford’s wife.” 

But when it came to talking of him, she was shy 
as a young girl about speaking of her lover. Mrs. 
Mavis, on the qui vive with curiosity, did her best to 
draw her friend out, but with very indifferent results. 

Lenox would not praise the man whose wife she 
had promised to be — would only describe his ap- 
pearance in such general terms as would apply to 
thousands of men. 422 


AT BRIARSWILD AGAIN. 


423 


“ I give it up from this time, Lenox,” Mrs. Mavis 
broke out one day, after her questions had met with 
particularly vague replies. “You are the most ag- 
gravating woman, now you are engaged !” 

“Wait and see for yourself, Dorrice, dear,” an- 
swered Lenox, in a half-pleading voice, yet through 
which Mrs. Mavis fancied she detected a little throb 
of triumph. 

The evening following that talk, Robert Beresford 
was at Briarswild. 

Two days afterward, his host and hostess learned 
how their guest and Lenox had first met in Cherry 
Hollows Glen. She related the whole story as they 
sat together in the twilight, after tea. When she had 
finished, there was a long silence. Mavis broke it 
at last. 

“ Why did you never tell me — never my mother 
— all this, Lenox?” he asked. There was something 
restrained in his voice. It might be amazement ; it 
sounded almost like sternness or reproach. 

“ I do not know, Ben,” answered Lenox, in the 
tone of one who tries to solve some riddle to herself. 
“ I always meant to speak, but the right time did 
not come. I never told anybody but Uncle Tom, 
and not him until we had known each other for 
years.” 

“ It is all more romantic than any novel I ever 
read,” said Dorrice, who had drunk in every word, 
with her baby sleeping in her arms, bringing back 
to Beresford the face of some of those golden-haired, 
tender-eyed Madonnas who had smiled on him so 
often in the picture galleries of his youth. 


424 


LENOX DARE. 


The next day, when the two men were walking 
over the grounds together, Beresford suddenly spoke 
to his companion : “ I never knew until yesterday 
how Lenox had come to you — what she owes to 
you ! Ah, Mavis, your glance at the first went 
straight to the mark, while mine — what an egregious 
blockhead I was that day in the Glen ! How little 
I deserve what has come to me I” 

The eyes of the two men met. Something in his 
host’s struck Beresford. In a moment a thought, a 
suspicion, flashed across him. Then he heard Ben’s 
voice answering quietly : “ It is not surprising you 
saw no farther, Beresford. Had I been in your place 
that day I should not have behaved as well as you 
did.” 

Before Beresford came to Briarswild Ben Mavis 
had not been prejudiced in his favor. The news of 
Lenox’s engagement was, for many reasons, unwel- 
come to the man who had been more than a brother 
•to her. But all personal feeling had been merged 
in his anxiety for Lenox’s future. He feared lest her 
heart and imagination had idealized some nature, 
shallow and commonplace at bottom. He knew how 
many men and women wreck their lives in this way 
— knew how. terrible for Lenox Dare would ‘be the 
awaking from her illusions when marriage had set- 
tled her fate. He knew, too, that with her clear in- 
stincts, her high moral sense, the awaking from any 
illusion was, sooner or later, inevitable. 

But it was impossible for men like Robert Beres- 
ford and Ben Mavis to be thrown together without 
soon recognizing each other’s quality. In less than 


AT BKIARSWILD AGAIN. 


425 


two days after his guest’s arrival, Mavis had come 
to the conclusion that a character so noble, a soul so 
many-sided and rarely endowed, had never crossed 
his threshold. As for Mrs. Mavis — I suppose no 
woman could know Robert Beresford without loving 
him. 

The day after the two men had their talk, Beres- 
ford said to Lenox : “ Mavis is a noble fellow. You 
and he knew each so long — you were thrown so 
.constantly together, the wonder is — ” 

“ I know what you are going to say,” interrupted 
Lenox. “ Such a thought never entered the mind of 
either of us. Ben only felt for me what the tender- 
est brother could feel for his young sister ; and I 
— it has struck me now for the first time as a little 
singular that I never had any young girl’s roman- 
tic fancies. But I had, half unconsciously, a stand- 
ard — ” 

She paused a moment, and then she turned to him 
with a new light in her face. 

“It must have been because I had seen you, Rob- 
ert,” she said. “I did not know it; but, ignorant 
and foolish as I was, you had been a suggestion — 
you had given me a glimpse of something manly, 
and tender, and noble, that never afterward crossed 
my path. I see it all now. It was you that saved 
me from anything but the most surface fancy, when 
I was at Hampton Beach. What have I been uncon- 
sciously owing you all this time !” 

Beresford listened with grateful surprise ; but 
while she was talking he could not forget the look 
which had struck him in Mavis’s eyes. The suspi- 


426 


LENOX DARE. 


cion which awoke in him at that time has never died 
out, though he has never again spoken of it, even to 
Lenox. 

In that happy home of her girlhood, her sparkling 
spirits, her native gayety broke out, unrestrained and 
infectious. Even Robert Beresford had some new sur- 
prise and delight in her playful moods. 

His visit had fallen in the loveliest autumn weather. 
He and Lenox passed much of their time out-doors, 
visiting her old haunts, and living over the past of 
both. She had learned through Jack Leith, a good 
deal of Beresford’s artistic promise. Her own in- 
stincts had taught her, in their early acquaintance, 
that he had not the business temperament, but he 
himself never alluded to the subject, until he came 
to Briars wild. 

One day he told her what had decided him to 
enter the iron firm. He set before her every motive 
which had influenced him at the time he made his 
choice. It was her right to know now. 

Lenox sat very still after he had spoken. They 
could hear in the next room Dorrice crooning to her 
sleeping boy. At last Lenox spoke in the low-keyed, 
decided voice which, with her, was a sign of repressed 
feeling : “ There are few things in the world I would 
not rather face than poverty. I see how it cripples, 
hampers, half frustrates so many lives. My tastes, 
my habits, may have made a coward of me. But,” 
and the beautiful head bridled, and the soul of the 
woman shone in her eyes, and thrilled through her 
voice, “I think I could bear cold and hunger — I 
think I could work my fingers to the bone, before 


AT BRIARSWILD AGAIN". 


427 


the man I loved should sell his birthright. If he 
did that to shelter me in ease and luxury, the whole 
would be to me only — Esau’s mess of pottage !” 

When he heard her say that, when he saw how 
she looked saying it, Robert Beresford knew that, 
had Lenox Dare been his wife, he should never have 
gone into business. 

“ Thank Heaven you will have no tests of that 
sort,” he said, replying to her speech. 

Was she speaking to him or to herself: “ One of 
these days — in a little while — you must go back 
to your easel, Robert.” 

“ After all these wasted years, Lenox !” he mur- 
mured, sadly. 

She turned and faced him then, with her radiant 
eyes. 

“ It is not too late ! It shall not be !” she said. 

Were her words inspired? As she listened, as he 
gazed on her, he half believed it. Would the old 
visions — the morning beauty — the sense of power 
— the joy of achievement, come back again ! Could 
the presence, the faith, the tenderness of this woman, 
work miracles — evoke from the grave of years that 
Gift which had been the Hope and the Life of his 
youth ? 

The day that Robert Beresford left Briarswild, 
Lenox and Ben Mavis had one of their old evening 
walks together. 

“ I am satisfied with your choice,” he said. “ You 
and Robert Beresford must have been intended for 
each other, in the original constitution of things.” 


CHAPTER XXXII. 


TWO HOMES. 

I N the late November, when the last smile of the 
Indian Summer lingered dreamily on the hill- 
sides, and among the brown valleys, Robert Beres- 
ford and Lenox Dare were married. They had the 
quietest of weddings in the gray cottage. Only a 
few people were present — the Mavises, the Leiths 
and some old friends of the Apthorps. 

Lenox went at once to her husband’s home. She 
did not, however, give up her own. Before their mar- 
riage they had decided to occupy the two homes. 
These stood in opposite directions, nearly equidistant 
from Boston. The cottage, that looked toward the 
sea, seemed to fitly supplement the inland mansion, 
that faced the northern hills. 

Of homes like these, of a life like theirs, there 
is little to write. The supreme contentment of such 
a marriage must be still, like that of the old friend- 
ship, its wide range of sympathies, its satisfying com- 
panionship. 

Something of a fair, gracious presence that had van- 
ished, seemed still, in Lenox’s thought, to haunt the 
beautiful home, the wide old rooms of which she 
was mistress. She would not have had it otherwise. 

428 


TWO HOMES. 


429 


In the large and generous nature of this woman 
there was no room for any of those retrospections 
and associations of which a smaller soul might have 
been conscious. It was the aim of Lenox Dare to 
keep always tender and vivid in the memory of her 
husband the love of his youth. Had he failed him- 
self there, she would have felt that she failed herself 
also. 

The love that had come to her — the best gift of 
God — was, in its tenderness and opulence, a daily 
surprise to her. But her deepest happiness must 
always consist, less in the love which she received, 
than in that which she bestowed. 

There was one relation, however, which, at the 
outset, she found it impossible to realize that she had 
assumed with her marriage to Robert Beresford. 

His son was still with his aunt in Germany, but 
he was to return home in the early spring. I cannot 
imagine the position of step-mother would at first 
seem altogether agreeable to any woman. But it was 
in the nature of Lenox Dare to see the ideal side 
of all relations and characters where her own heart 
was concerned. 

She thought about Philip — she entered more or 
less into his feelings, into his first recoil when he 
learned what she was — into the pain with which 
he would hear that a stranger had taken his mother’s 
place in his home — in his father’s heart. In a little 
while there grew up in her soul a yearning pity and 
love for the boy. 

Meanwhile the northern winter went on its way 
of cold, and storm, and sleet. Robert Beresford was 


430 


LENOX DAKE. 


keeping his promise to his wife, and settling up his 
business as fast as its varied complications admitted. 

The two listened to the wild voices of the winds 
around their inland home, to the roll of the sea in 
the gray cottage by the beach. 

They came and went in the oddest ways, some- 
times staying for a single day — sometimes for a 
week. Donald Brae and his wife were always on 
the lookout for them, always had the rooms ready, 
the hearth-fires bright. 

Sometimes, as they sat together, reading, or talk- 
ing, or dropping into those silences more silvery than 
any speech, Beresford would look at his wife, and 
say : “ What a woman you are !” 

And Lenox would laugh gayly, and answer : “ That 
remark is dreadfully ambiguous !” 

But his tone and look were anything but that. 

Once she said to him, with a little quiver in her 
voice: “We are so happy - here, Robert, that I am 
half afraid — as though my own fair fortunes almost 
mocked the world’s loss and sorrow. What have I 
done to be so blessed? Uncle Tom’s dying prophecy 
has come true.” 

“ Yes ; I needed you, Lenox,” he answered. “ The 
perpetual wonder is that I have you !” he added in 
a moment, with the humility of the highest love. 

“ The wonder with me is of a precisely opposite 
kind,” replied Lenox. “ But sometimes, Robert, it 
does all seem a good deal like what Emerson half 
satirically calls ‘ the novelist’s prosperities.’ Here 
we are — with our two homes, with more wealth 
than we want, and — oh, I could go on endlessly, 
but the sum of it all would be — with each other !” 


TWO HOMES. 


431 


And then for a little while there was silence. 

Lenox was the first to break it. 

“ Sometimes a little fear creeps across me, when I 
think of the future. The fear does not stay long, 
but always brings a little chill and shadow with it.” 

“ What is the fear, Lenox ?” 

“ That we — that /must grow old in a little while !” 

“ Old !” he repeated, with a quiet, amused sort of 
smile. “ Do you really imagine you could ever do 
that, to me, Lenox ?” 

She thought of the swift, sure-footed years — how 
they stole from all human things the grace of youth, 
the glow of beauty, and she answered, doubtfully : 
“ It is not for myself I care — not even when I think 
of the fading, the wrinkles, the gray hairs that must 
have their turn ; but the beauty you find in me has 
grown precious — sacred for your sake. How will 
you feel to see my youth going?” 

Again his grave, tender smile shone on her. Then 
he said : “ When a woman’s soul has become the best 
part of her beauty — when a man can say to her 
that she has satisfied his heart and his intellect, and 
rekindled his imagination, that woman need never 
be afraid of growing old under his eyes.” 

And again there was a little silence. This time 
the man broke it. 

“ How often,” he said, “ I go back in my thoughts 
to the road which led me that morning from the hos- 
pital over the hills. I shall be going back over it 
all my life. If I live to be an old man, I shall say 
of it : 

* To think how little I dreamed it led 
To an age so blest, that by its side 
Youth seems the waste instead V ** 


CHAPTER XXXIII. 


PHILIP BERESFOKD. 

I N the early spring Philip Beresford crossed the 
sea. The boy thought his father the most splen- 
did man in the world. His second marriage had 
been a severe shock to Philip. He could remember 
his own mother perfectly. He had never forgotten 
that day when she lay, white and still, in the ravine, 
and he sat by her side and watched the curious, 
whispering crowd around them. 

Philip’s aunt Edith, kindly and commonplace, 
had, by her indiscreet comments, augmented her 
nephew’s repugnance to his father’s marriage. She 
had gossiped endlessly about it in the boy’s hearing. 
“ Rob,” she insisted, “was, with all his genius, just 
the soft-hearted fellow to be taken in by an artful, 
ambitious woman. He always fancied people finer 
and better than they were. Poor Philip would find 
his home a totalty different place now a step-mother 
held the reins ! Of course she would get round his 
father, by hook or by crook — second wives always 
did that — and have everything her own way !” 

Talk of this sort had been persistently dinned into 
the boy’s ears the winter before he sailed for home. 
Meanwhile Beresford wrote very sparingly about 

432 


PHILIP BERESFORD. 


433 


his wife. He entered thoroughly into Philip’s feel- 
ing at this time, and knew the only satisfactory way 
of overcoming that would be to let the boy judge for 
himself. He understood his sister well enough to 
imagine all she would say. 

Beresford went to New York to meet his son. 
Overjoyed as Philip was to see his father again, a 
shadow lay all the while on his young heart. He 
remembered his aunt’s talk ; he dreaded the first 
meeting with the strange woman who would be in 
his mother’s place. 

He waited for his father to speak of her, but the 
man never alluded to his wife. They were in the 
cars, on their way home, when Philip suddenly drew 
up to his father, and asked under his breath : “ Papa, 
is — is she there?” 

“Yes, my dear boy, she is there. She will be 
very glad to see you.” 

This was the sole allusion to Lenox during the 
journey. Beresford read his boy’s heart as though 
it had been an open book. He pitied him so keenly 
that the silence, which he. knew in the end would 
prove wisest for all, cost him a great effort. 

They reached home just at gloaming. Lenox met 
them in the hall. She wore that evening a black vel- 
vet dress. There was not a hint of color about her. 
Her uncle and her husband fancied that black or 
white suited her best, and her own tastes were almost 
severe in their simplicity. 

Philip Beresford is a boy still, but to his dying 
day he will never forget the graceful vision — the 
tall, slender woman with the brown eyes, who met 


434 


LENOX DARE. 


him on the threshold. There was a little tremulous- 
ness about the mouth — a flush on the cheeks, which 
her husband knew was, with her, the sign of inward 
excitement. 

The woman and the boy stood silent a moment, 
gazing on each other. Lenox saw the slight, lithe 
figure, the brown, clustering hair, the )'Oung, delicate 
face, where the mother's violet eyes shone clear over 
all the strong likeness to the father. As she looked 
down on the boy, all the significance of the relation 
in which they two stood to each other grew solemnly 
vivid to her. It must be forever hallowed to her by 
the sacredness of one grave, by the pathos of its silence, 
by the sense of its claim. A great tenderness toward 
this boy — the gift of his dead mother to her heart 
and life — suddenly came over her. 

Then she heard his father saying : “ This is my 
wife, Mrs. Beresford, Philip.” 

He had never consulted Lenox about the name 
which she would bear to his son. But he was cer- 
tain what would best suit her. 

She leaned forward now. Had she yielded to her 
feeling she would have drawn the boy to her heart, 
but she was not impulsive on the surface. She took 
the boy’s hand between her soft palms, and her voice 
was quite steady, when she said : “ I am very glad 
to see you, Philip. I hope we shall be — a great 
deal to each other. ” 

And Philip, still staring at her, answered, with 
the courtesy of speech and manner which were his 
inheritance : “ I hope we shall be, Mrs. Beresford.” 

If the words, as you read them, sound strange 


PHILIP BERESFORD. 


435 


and cold, you must bear in mind the sort of people 
they were — the three naturally proud and reticent 
when it came to any expression of their deepest 
feelings. 

Lenox understood perfectly. Her husband would 
not claim from his son, at the first, anything bej^ond 
the respect and courtesy due the woman who had 
taken his mother’s place. Other feelings might come 
with longer acquaintance, and deeper knowledge ; 
but at the beginning it was impossible she could be 
more to the boy than her husband had called her — 
his father’s wife. 

For the next hour Philip did not remove his curi- 
ous, pleased eyes from Mrs. Beresford, while she talked 
with him about his voyage, and about the plans his 
father had made for his coming home. 

When the two were alone together, Philip turned 
to his father, and said, very earnestly : “ Papa, she 
is not at all like — like what I expected.” 

“No; I did not suppose she would be, Philip,” 
he replied, and that was all that was ever said be- 
tween them on the subject. 

Philip Beresford was a boy — not quite twelve 
years old,' more or less spoiled by everybody. He 
had a generous heart, a high temper, a boy’s love of 
loud sports and fun, a boy’s crude notions and head- 
strong will. He made a breeze of fresh, young life 
in the house. Lenox thoroughly enjoyed it. She 
had never been thrown much with boys, and this one 
was a source of perpetual interest and amusement 
to her. She entered with zest into his varied boy’s 
life. Her interest in his young plans and pleasures 


436 


LENOX DARE. 


never flagged. In a little while Beresford saw that 
the wish they had expressed on their first meeting 
had come true — his wife and his boy were “ a great 
deal to each other.” 

Philip, of course, found Joe Hatch installed at the 
house. He and the younger boy soon became the 
best of comrades. Beresford did not adopt Joe. He 
kept his promise to the father — he meant to see that 
Joe came up an honest man. He would give him 
the chance to develop whatever native faculty he 
possessed. That would be better than bringing him 
up as a gentleman’s son. 

Joe had, from the beginning, an immense admira- 
tion for Lenox. He had learned with delight, from 
Beresford, that she was coming to be mistress of the 
grand house. It was not in her nature or her hus- 
band’s to forget that they owed their first meeting 
to Joe Hatch. 

Sometimes when Lenox looked at Philip, and thought 
of that new fountain of mother-love which had 
opened in her heart toward the boy, she would ex- 
claim, half involuntarily : “ O Philip, you are such a 
comfort to me !” 

And Philip would look in her tender eyes, with his 
grave, boyish ones, and think to himself : “ I wonder 
what I have done to make her say that !” 

But those who saw them together — saw how he 
would sit and watch her with pleased eyes — how he 
liked to be by her side ; how he would follow her 
from room to room to tell her what had happened — 
whatever event filled for the moment with light or 
shadow his young horizon — those never doubted 
that Philip Beresford loved his father’s wife ! 


CHAPTER XXXIV. 


THE DEARER NAME. 

I T was a June morning again. Once more Lenox 
Dare stood among her tulip-beds and looked over 
their sea of gorgeous bloom. She had come down 
two days before, with her husband and Philip, to stay 
a week by the sea. Lenox’s memory went back sud- 
denly to a year ago, when she had stood in the 
same place, with the darkness and ache at her heart. 
She remembered Jessie Dawes ; she remembered how 
the dawn had arisen on the night of her loneliness 
and grief, how the supreme joy of her life had come 
when she believed that all her joys had vanished. 

She had learned much through her own bliss. She 
had come to feel, in a deeper sense than ever before, 
that it was God’s will that His creatures should be 
happy — that He must have meant that from the 
beginning ; and that what He meant, must be, 

“At last — far off — at last — to all.” 

She turned at length from her flower-beds, and 
went on through the grounds. In one corner of 
these was a little rustic arbor, roofed over with green 
vines. They made a dim, cool nook in the hottest 
noonday. When Lenox came here, she caught sight 
of a small brown head on the low seat. She went 

437 


438 


LENOX DARE. 


inside, and found Philip stretched at full length, and 
fast asleep. The shadows of the vines trembled on 
his delicate, young face, and over his damp, brown 
curls. Lenox drew a low seat to his side, sat down, 
and watched the sleeping boy, shading his eyes from 
a stray sunbeam or two. At length Philip stirred, 
opened his eyes, and saw, in the shadowy stillness, 
the beautiful face that bent over him. 

“ Why, Mrs. Beresford,” he exclaimed, “ how did 
you come here ?” 

“ I was out in the grounds, and happened to be 
passing this way, when I caught sight of a brown 
head lying on the seat. I came in softly, and have 
been watching you — ten minutes, perhaps. What 
made you go to sleep, Philip ?” 

“ It does look a good deal like a two-year old, 
napping at this time of day ! I didn’t know I was 
tired ; but when I passed here it looked so cool and 
still I just stopped in, and dropped off in a flash. 
Papa and I had the jolliest swim this morning.” 

“ Swim !” 

“ Yes. Papa proposed it when we were on our 
way to the station. I know the notion struck him 
when we came in sight of the bay. We went down 
on the rocks, found some bathing suits, and in two 
minutes we plunged in. We had glorious fun for 
the next half hour, tumbling about in the big waves. 
Papa missed the next train, but the fun more than 
paid for that.” 

“I am glad you had the fun. It was just like 
your father to start off in that way. One is never 
quite sure of what he may do the next minute.” 


THE DEARER NAME. 


439 


“ Papa is splendid on a lark ! But,” continued 
Philip, his voice growing grave, “ he is a dreadful 
muff when it comes to letting me have any fun on 
my own hook.” 

“ What does that mean, Philip ?” 

“ Some of the fellows are going off on a tramp to- 
morrow, to Blue Hill. It will be just the jolliest lark! 
I asked papa about my going, but he didn’t look 
encouragingly. He doesn’t realize that I am almost 
twelve years old. Here Philip rose from his seat, 
and straightened his slender figure. “ He has the 
most absurd notions about my being unable to take 
care of myself. It isn’t pleasant.” 

“ I can imagine not — altogether.” 

“ The idea,” continued Philip, in a half indignant, 
half aggrieved tone, “ of not trusting a fellow as far 
as Blue-Hill, who has tramped half over Switzerland 
with his cousins ! I believe papa does not know I 
have grown a day older since I left home. A fellow 
at twelve don’t like to be treated like a milksop !” 

“ Well, Philip, I will talk over Blue Hill with your 
father to-night.” 

Philip hurrahed at that. “ I am sure to go now,” 
he said. “ Papa will never refuse anything you ask 
him.” 

“ I am afraid that is hardly a compliment to him,” 
said Mrs. Beresford, gaily. 

But a moment after she grew silent, gazing at 
Philip, until there was a tender shining in her eyes. 
At last she laid her hand softly on his curls. 

“ I like to see my little boy happy !” she said, with 
a soft thrill in her voice. 


440 


LENOX DARE. 


Philip looked up. He saw the tender shining in the 
dark eyes. They seemed to draw his heart toward 
them. 

“ Dear, beautiful Mamma !” he murmured. 

It was an involuntar}^ exclamation. He had made 
it a good many times before — in his thoughts. He 
was not aware that he had spoken until he saw the 
look in Lenox’s face. Then he flushed like a girl. 

“ Philip,” she said, in low, tremulous tones, and 
with a slight, deprecating gesture, “ I have no right 
to that name. It belongs to the dead.” 

But when he heard her say that, he broke out 
again : “Yes you have — the best right in the world. 
I don’t like that other name. It sounds so — so 
formal — just what everybody else calls you.” 

“ It never sounds so to me when you speak it, 
Philip. You — your father’s boy — give it a mean- 
ing no one else can. And, in any case, I care very 
little for names. Something which lies back of them 
is of real value to me.” 

“ What is that ?” asked Philip. 

“ It is my boy’s love.” 

“ Of course you have that,” he answered, moved 
out of his usual shyness. “ But why shouldn’t you 
have the name, too ?” 

“ What have I done that — that you wish to give 
it to me ?” 

“ Everything. You have been from the first so kind, 
so good to me. I do not believe any boy ever found 
such a one before.” 

As she listened, a great tenderness drew all her 
heart toward the boy. She clasped her hands on his 


THE DEARER NAME. 


441 


shoulder, as long ago she had clasped them on uncle 
Tom’s. 

“ Philip,” she said solemnly, “ I cannot tell what 
you have been to me — what a new blessedness I 
have found in loving you. How often I have looked 
at you, and thought of the mother whose gift you 
have been to me. She had to die in the midst of 
her youth and happiness to leave me papa. How shall 
I thank her sometime — somewhere — for leaving me 
you /” 

He was still a moment, thinking his boy’s thoughts. 
Then he broke out again : “ I am so glad it was you 
instead of somebody else — Mamma ! Mamma !” 

He said over the sweet name half to himself, as 
though he loved the sound ; and then he looked up 
archly in her eyes. 

“ I may call you that — may I not ?” he said, draw- 
ing closer to her. 

“Certainly, Philip, if you prefer that — if your 
heart, unsatisfied with any other, gives that to me. 
But I never want the dearer name simply because I 
am your father’s wife.” 

“ That is not the reason with me, either ; it is 
because — you know — I just told you.” 

When she heard him say that, she leaned forward, 
and the woman — not given to light caresses — and 
the shy boy kissed each other. 

They sat still a little while, and then Philip spoke 
again : “ Mamma, I do not believe you are like other 
women.” 

“ Why, Philip ?” 

“ I don’t believe that many would feel toward me, 


442 


LENOX DARE. 


think of me, as you do. Aun’t Edith said that — ” 

“ Step-mothers, ” suggested Lenox, understanding 
the boy’s sudden pause, and looking into his eyes 
with a smile. “ You and I do not care for words.” 

“Yes — step-mothers — were horrid things ! Do 
you know,” he continued, remorsefully, “ I didn’t 
like you at all before I saw you. I dreaded the 
thought of coming home to find }~ou here.” 

“But your feeling, it appears, has undergone a 
change. Perhaps Aunt Edith’s would also when she 
came to know me.” 

' “Of course it would. But that would not alter 
the truth about other women, you see.” 

“ Philip,” said Lenox, with a great seriousness in 
voice and face, “ I cannot conceive how any woman 
could marry a man, as I have done your father, with- 
out remembering often and tenderly, that other woman 
who had to leave him, to go away from all the sweet- 
ness of love and home into the darkness and silence 
of the grave. Her own pride and happiness — how- 
ever great these might be — would be sure to remind 
her at times of all that another had first to renounce.” 

“ I don’t believe most of them would think of it 
in that way,” said Philip, grave as a judge. 

“ The wa}' she would think of it must depend 
largely, of course, upon the sort of woman she was. 
But the relations would be the same if she had mar- 
ried for any reason but the best one — married a man 
for his money, his position, his home.” She paused 
there a moment before she added: “ I could not con- 
demn her in that last case, knowing as I do, what a 
hard, unkindly world it is to many of the women who 


THE DEAEER NAME. 


443 


have to struggle through it, unaided and alone. But 
I am getting quite beyond your depth, Philip.” 

“There is one thing more, though,” said Philip, 
holding to the subject with the persistency of a boy, 
when his heart and brain are aroused ; “ The children 
themselves might be horrid things, you know — self- 
ish, and rude, and hateful. Do you think, now, the 
woman could love that kind very much ? ” 

Lenox had to suppress a laugh. 

“ It would be very hard, certainly, for her to do it. 
She would be a very rare woman who could always 
keep in mind whatever was fine and sacred in her re- 
lation toward such children. But I thank God, 
Philip, that you are your father’s boy as well as your 
mother’s gift to me.” 

That night, at the table, Philip’s father heard the 
boy for the first time call Lenox by the name they 
had agreed on. He gave no sign, however, by so 
much as the lifting of an eyelid, that he observed it. 

But hours later, when Philip came to say good- 
night, he drew the boy to his heart and held him 
there, with a look and tone of unusual tenderness. 

When they were alone together, Lenox said to her 
husband : “ You heard what Philip called me to- 
night ? ” 

“ Yes, I heard, Lenox. I knew something had gone 
before that.” 

44 Yes ; there had.” 

She sat very still ; she heard outside the soft sound 
of the summer winds among the leaves — the far-off 
singing of the waves on the beach. 

At last Beresford leaned over and laid his hand on 
his wife’s. 


444 


LENOX DARE. 


“ Tell me, Lenox !” he said. 

And she told him, word for word, all that had 
passed between Philip and herself, that day, in the 
vine-draped arbor. When she had done, Beresford 
said to her in that peculiar tone which she had come 
to know was the sign with him of deep and manifold 
feeling : “ What a woman you are, Lenox, my wife !” 

And this time Lenox did not laugh, and tell him 
there was a dreadful ambiguity in his remark. 


CHAPTER XXXV. 


WAIT. 


HE autumn days had come again — days that 



i enchant the soul with their purple hues and 
serene depths of sky ; days that have a subtler charm 
than all the fresh loveliness of the budding May, 
than all the rich flowering of the midsummer. These 
were Robert Beresford’s favorite days. They made 
him think, he told his wife, of what some author 
has said of them : “ Then a wind blows from the re- 
gion of stories ! ” 

Mr. and Mrs. Beresford were at their inland home 
now. In the twilight they walked together through 
their grounds. 

They came at last to the grassy knoll on which 
stood the . great horsechestnut, with its trunk of 
mighty girth and its far-spreading branches. It was 
close to the place where Beresford had first caught 
sight of Joe Hatch. The two stood still — the tall 
and noble man, the slender and beautiful woman — 
and looked off from that height on the panorama 
spread before them. They saw the green, far-reach- 
ing intervales, the meandering of the Charles, the dis- 
tant spires and dark roofs of Boston, the gilded dome 
of the State House, the gray shimmering of the 
“ noble island-spangled harbor,” the whole glowing in 
the rosy enchantments of sunset. 445 


446 


LENOX DALE. 


The two gazed' for awhile in silence. Then Beres- 
ford said : “I must go over to Jack Leith’s to-mor- 
row. The absurd fellow insists he must have another 
study of my head before we start for Briarswild.” 

Lenox glanced up at the fine head that towered 
over her. She, at least, did not wonder that Jack 
Leith wanted to make a study of it. 

In two days they were to start for Briarswild. It 
had been agreed, on all sides, that once a year they 
should visit the home of Lenox’s girlhood. For the 
remainder of their lives they would be content with 
their inland home and their cottage by the sea. 

While they were talking, they suddenly heard the 
thud of swift feet, the panting of breaths, and the 
next moment Philip and Joe Hatch rushed up a ter- 
race on the right, and threw themselves on the turf, 
breathless with fun and laughter. 

The two had been having a race together. They 
talked about it in loud glee, and about the way Phil- 
ip’s bycicle had come in ahead, in the match with the 
boys, that afternoon, on the old turnpike. 

The loud, merry voices suddenly ceased. In a 
minute or two Philip asked : “What ails you, Joe ?” 

“ What was I doing, Philip?” asked Joe, rousing 
from a brown study. The last year had made a won- 
derful improvement in his speech and bearing. 

“Nothing- — that’s just it. You’ve been as grave 
as an owl for the last three minutes.” 

Joe drew a long breath. Then he answered, in an 
undertone: “ I was a-thinking what the boy in, our 
class said to-day. He’s a big bo} r . He said it on the 
play ground. The others heard him.” 


WAIT. 


447 


“ What did he say, Joe ? ” 

“ He said cubs that belonged to tramps shouldn’t 
take on airs. They’d better take to the road, and to 
their old trade of beggin,’and robbin’ hen-roosts! ” 

Philip was on his feet in an instant. His cheeks 
were on fire ; his eyes blazed ; he clinched his fists. 

“ Did he dare to say that ? ” he cried. “ The great 
hulking coward ! I wish I had been there ! I’d have 
gone in — I’d have fetched him one blow that would 
have laid him flat ! ” 

The boy’s slender figure seemed to expand and 
grow tall, as it towered over Joe’s thick-set, short 
one. 

“ I tried to go at him,” answered Joe ; “but some 
of the others held me back. They said I was too lit- 
tle to fight him.” 

Philip laid his hand on Joe’s shoulder. He was al- 
most four years the older. 

“ Joe,” he said, “ if anybody calls you names he 
will find out he must reckon with me?' 

Joe looked* up, with immense admiration, in the 
flushed, young face. Then he added, in a moment : 
“ But what he called me was true, you know ! ” His 
lip quivered. He had been learning many things 
since that morning he first stood in Miss Dare’s li- 
brary. 

“ Joe,” said Philip, very earnestly, “ it can’t make 
any difference to me — it never will ! ” 

“ Are you sure, Philip, when you get to be a man ? 
I couldn’t help it all, you know,” he added, in a way 
that was indescribably pathetic. 

“ Do you think I could ever be such a sneak as to 


448 


LENOX DARE. 


mind that ? ” exclaimed Philip, his cheeks blazing 
again. “ Oh, don’t I ache to fight it out with the 
bully who insulted you on the play ground ! ” 

Lenox turned to her husband, with kindling eyes. 

“There spoke- my boy’s father!” she whispered. 

“ There spoke his father’s temper ! ” answered 
Beresford, half proudly, half tenderly. “Poor Phil! 
He will have many a hard tussle with that yet.” 

There was a little silence betwixt the boys. In a 
few moments Philip spoke again : “ Joe, you know I 
shall go to Briarswild with papa and mamma ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ When I am gone you may ride my bicycle every 
day.” 

“ Your bicycle — every day — Philip,” replied Joe, 
in a slow way, as though he found it hard to realize 
the words. 

“ Yes; just as though it were your own.” 

Joe gave a yell ; then turned a summersault on the 
turf. That was a slight relief from a burden of bliss 
almost too great for the small soul and body to bear 
— a bliss that quite swallowed up all the talk on the 
play ground that day. 

A little later, restless as two healthy young ani- 
mals, the two had gone in search of Robert, and the 
gray squirrels he had brought in from the woods that 
morning. 

In less than half an hour Philip returned by him- 
self. As he went up to the house, he caught sight of 
the pair under the horsechestnut. He supposed they 
had just come out. He joined them at once. 

“ Mamma,” he said, “ are we really goingto Briars- 
wild, day after to-morrow ? ” 


WAIT. 


449 


“We are really going, Philip.” 

“You promised me I should ride Dainty after we 
got there.” 

“ As often as you like. Dainty is an old veteran 
now, but I think she can carry you over the hills al- 
most as fleetly as she carried me fifteen years ago.” 

“ Your weight, Philip, won’t be likely to break the 
animal’s back,” said Beresford, with a laugh, as he 
looked on the boy’s slight figure. 

When Philip disappeared, his father said to Lenox : 
“ The dews are beginning to fall. We had better go 
in,” and he gave her his arm. 

In the glowing twilight they went up toward the 
house. It was far too lovely to go in-doors, and they 
sat down in the rocking-chairs, on the piazza. 

The splendor of the sunset, the stillness and beauty 
of the falling night, the talk between the boys on the 
lawn, had stirred the hearts of the man and woman. 
After a little while, Lenox turned to her husband, and 
said, with a solemn tenderness in her voice : “ There 
have been times m my life when death seemed the 
pleasantest, the most welcome thing in the world to 
me ! Now it is the only thing I dread, because, when 
that comes, we must leave each other !” 

“When you remember that, Lenox,” Beresford an- 
swered, 4 4 remember also the 

‘ Other heights, in other worlds, God willing ! ’ 

Do you suppose we shall have all — have the best of 
each other, even, in this world?” 

There was no need of answering that. 

They sat a long while without speaking. The 
twilight faded. The stars followed one another into 


450 


LENOX DALE. 


the far blue. Lenox began to feel something in the 
silence. She waited for her husband to speak. At 
last he leaned forward. 

u Lenox, my wife ! ” he said. 

“Yes, Robert.” 

“ I think I am going to paint a picture that — that 
you will not be ashamed of.” 

“ Robert ! ” 

That was all she said. 

But he saw her eyes, dilated with joy and triumph, 
shining on him through the brown darkness ; and he 
knew why her speech failed her. 

“ After all, it will be your picture,” he said. “ I 
never should have done it without you ! ” 

But she did not ask him what the picture would 
be, and he did not tell her. 

It was like her, in an hour like this, to think of 
others. When she spoke it was of them, rather than 
of herself. 

“ There are so many lives, burdened, harassed, in- 
complete — so many darkened by poverty, saddened 
by disappointment — so many hearts that ache with 
frustrated hopes and aspirations that my own lot 
seems almost a reproach to me. I ask myself what 
I have done to deserve it ! ” 

“ There is not a day of my life, Lenox,” answered 
her husband, “ that I do not ask myself the same 
question.” 

“ And yet,” she resumed, in a moment, “ there is 
one word I should like to send to all these hearts that 
ache — to all these burdened, shadowed lives ! I 
should like to whisper it to all who are haunted by 


WAIT. 


451 


ghosts of Might-Have-Beens, to all who, brave and 
silent, carry their griefs through the slow years, to all 
who, bound together for a lifetime by ties that wear 
and chafe, have learned too late their mistake. And 
if this word, and my speaking it, could bring to all 
these some fresh courage, and patience, and hope, I 
think I could go out from the happiness of this per- 
fect hour — go away — even from you, Robert — into 
the darkness and silence of the grave, and trust God 
for our next meeting ! ” 

“ What should the word be, Lenox ? ” 

“ Wait ! ” 

Robert Beresford was silent a moment. Then he 
rose. He laid his hand on his wife’s shoulder. The 
look of his noblest mood was on his face, as his gaze 
went off to the far summer stars. 

“ I see,” he said, “I see ! And the longest wait- 
ing, the hardest, the most patient, shall seem, at the 
last, ‘LIKE A DREAM WHEN ONE AWAKETH ! ’ ” 


THE END. 







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VOYAGE OF THE PAPER CANOE. 

A Geographical Journey of Twenty-five Hundred Miles from Quebec to the Gulf 
of Mexico. By the same author. With numerous illustrations and maps 
specially prepared for this work. Crown 8vo. $2.50. 

FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. 

A Boat-Voyage of Twenty-six Hundred Miles down the Ohio and Mississippi 
Rivers, and along the Gulf of Mexico. By the same author. With nu- 
merous maps and illustrations. $2.50. 

CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. 

Being the Adventures of a Naturalist Bird-Hunting in the West India Islands. 
By Fred A. Ober. Crown 8vo. With maps and illustrations. $2.50. 

For sale by all booksellers and newsdealers, and sent by mail, postpaid, on 

receipt of price. 

LEE & SHEPARD, Publishers 


Boston, 


HOW I FOUND IT 

NORTH AND SOUTH. 

This is not a book of fiction, or of theory, but a 
book of facts. 


Born and reared on a New England farm, the author, like many 
another New England boy of his younger days, went to sea, before 
settling down in life. At the age of twenty-one, however, he married, 
and took charge of the “ old farm,” — the paternal homestead. Loss 
by fire, and a desire to get along faster in the world, led him after 
some years to the city, where he soon learned that “ all is not gold 
that glitters.” To relieve himself from the anxieties and perplexities 
of the city, he at length turned back, with ardent longings, to seek 
the former peace and quiet and true-heartedness of the country. 

But the old home being then in other hands, he must look for a farm 
elsewhere ; and it is here that his story begins, — “ How I Found 
It,” — in which he tells how he found other farms, how his subsequent 
farming paid, and, finally, with what success he attempted to establish 
a home in Florida. His varied and eventful experience has supplied 
the material for a narrative which is truly more interesting than 
fiction, engaging at once the attention of the reader and holding it 
with constantly increasing interest to the end. And for those, at 
least, who have a desire to go to farming , this experience will have 
some value. 

Appended is “ Mary’s Statement,” • in which the ever-loving 
and devoted wife gives some pleasing reminiscences of those earlier 
years at the old homestead, with an account of David’s manage- 
ment of the farm, the profits derived, and also a vivid description 
of the event that shrouded their home in gloom, and was the final 
cause of their leaving it for the city. The whole forms a story 
which no lover of the country and of rural life can fail to find 
pleasure in reading. 

Bound in Paper $ .50 

Bound in English Cloth ...... 1.00 


Agents wanted to sell this in every town. Liberal Terms. 
Copies sent by mail free on receipt of price. 

Lee and Shepard, Publishers, Boston. 


THE BEST OF GOOD READING, 


THE FALL OF DAMASCUS. 

By William Wells Russell. i2ino. Cloth, $1.50. 

“ In vigor of style, in freshness of thought, and in dramatic power, superior to any 
American novel recently issued from the press.” — Halifax (Fa.) Record. 

“ The author is new to us, but he has written a powerful fiction. The subject, the 
period, the characters, the love story sandwiched in, all conspire to make the feat diffi- 
cult of success. And yet the fiction is a grand success.” — Provideiice Press. 

BLUFFTON. 

By Rev. M. J. Savage (Church of the Unity, Boston). i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

“ This novel is not a novel. It is really a controversial theologic discussion from 
the liberal standpoint, cast in the form of a novel. Yet it has a natural plot, and it 
tells an interesting story. It is written with great clearness and vigor, and is one of 
the most interesting books recently published. Its characters are only sketched; but 
they are sketched with a clear, free, and bold hand.” — Detroit Tribune. 

ROTHMELL. 

By the author of “ Mr. Peter Crewitt,” “That Husband of Mine,” “''That Wife of 

Mine,” &c. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

“ A work of very great merit and interest, and reminds us somewhat of some of 
Mrs. Burnett’s best productions — ‘ That Lass o’Lowne’s,’ for example. The story, a 
touching one in itself, is most feelingly told, and while not in any manner overdrawn, 
it possesses all the elements of the highest order of romance, which is the romance of 
real life.” — Bancroft Messenger, San Francisco. 

SEOLA. 

i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

“A strange and wonderful work of imagination.” Indianapolis Tribune. 

“ One of the most singular works ever written, being neither history nor theology, 
but a story founded in strict concordance with the sacred writings of the Hebrews 
and traditions of other nations. A work of which any one might feel proud.” — Sche- 
nectady Union. 

NOBODY’S HUSBAND. 

i6mo. Cloth, $1.00. Paper, 50 cents. 

“ Of a somewhat different kind is Nobody’s Husband. It describes the adventures 
on railroad and steamboat of a bachelor gentleman and his friend’s wife, a young lady 
accustomed to enjoy her own way, a baby, a dog, and an Irish servant-girl. The book 
is full of the author’s peculiar humor, and the haps and mishaps of the party are 
sketched with some force.” — Toronto Monthly. 

A YEAR WORTH LIVING. 

By Rev. W. M. Baker. Author of “The New Timothy,” “Mose Evans,” &c. 

i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

“ Really a novel of merit. The characters are distinctly and artistically drawn. 
They become people to us fully as much as do Dickens’s characters, and still are not so 
exaggerated. The descriptions of scenery are fine. The scourge of the South, the 
yellow fever, is depicted in all its horror; we know the author is acquainted with it. 
Take it through and through, and it is one of the most enjoyable books we have read 
lately.” — Indianapolis Tribune. 


For sale by all booksellers and newsdealers, and sent by mail, postpaid, on 

receipt of price. 


LEE & SHEPARD, Publishers Boston. 

C. T. DILLINGHAM ........... New York. 


THE BEST OF AMERICAN 


FICTION. 


A PAPER CITY. 

By D, R. Locke (Petroleum V. Nasby). i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

“We venture to say that few new books will be read with more erjoyment than fhit 
*ne. It is one of the finest. bits of history and character-drawing ever issued from vhh 
press.” — Indianapolis Journal. 

A WOMAN’S WORD, AND HOW SHE KEPT IT. 

By Miss Virginia F. Townsend. Author of “ Only Girls,” “ That Queer Girl,” 

i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

“ Miss Townsend has heretofore produced many quiet and delightful home volume-- 
but in this new venture she soars far above her former work. There it an intensity 
and dramatic interest in the book that never lags, and it possesses a pure element tha' 
gives it the right tone and finish.” — Modern Argus , N.Y. 

HIS INHERITANCE. 

By Miss Adeline Trafton. Author of “An American Girl Abroad,” “Latherin'* 

Earle,” &c. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

“ Miss Trafton, the daughter of a well-known divine, has in previous books, notablv 
'An American Girl Abroad,’ won a reputation for lively writing of the purest type 
In this, her latest venture, she is charmingly fascinating, not only in the stoiy itself, 
but the manner of telling it. Pathos, humor, character, stand out in every thing col 
nected with the heroes and heroines of the tale.” — Providence Despatch. 

AGAMENTICUS. 

By E. P. Tenney (President of Colorado College) . Author of “ Coronation.” Squa' * 

i6mo. Classic size, $1.25. 

“ As a study of life and character, brimful of laughter-provoking, quaint and thought- 
awakening surprises, for dyspeptics who cannot go to Saratoga, and intellectual peopl 
getting short of ideas, we confidently commend it as the book of the season.” — Chi 
cago Advance. 

AN AMERICAN CONSUL ABROAD. 

By Samuel Sampleton (Luigi Monti). 

“ The sixpenny way in which our consular service is managed has made it ridiculom 
at home and abroad: hence the troubles which beset poor Mr. Sampleton in his attempt 
to live within his income, and at the same time maintain the dignity of the office, ar* 
not overdrawn, and the book may do a good work. It is very readable, and interwoven 
with the story is a fund of information which will interest any reader who is not famiP 
iar with the consular service.” — Taunton Gazette. 

MR. PETER CREWITT. 

By the author of “ That Husband of Mine,” “ That Wife of Mine,” “ Rothmell,” & / \ 

i6mo. Cloth, $x.oo. Paper, 50 cents. 

“ It is full of quaintness, abounds in humor, and is pathetic with all the rest. Out 
readers need no urging from us to procure this issue, as it is one of the brightest an^ 
raciest of books of its kind ever placed before the public, and is sprightly and enter 
taining from beginning to end.” — N . B. Standard. 


For sale by all booksellers and newsdealers, and sent by mail, postpaid, on 

receipt of price. 


LEE & SHEPARD, Publishers Boston. 

C. T. DILLINGHAM New York. 














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